Not sure if that was meant to be a rhetorical question, but here's my opinion: "Best" posts--those which are a good source of information--have a high view-to-

Not sure if that was meant to be a rhetorical question, but here's my opinion: "Best" posts--those which are a good source of information--have a high view-to-interaction ratio. An inflammatory post on a forum or Reddit tends to see more replies than the average. A good reference piece or poignant story seems more likely to stand on its own--it will have more views than most posts, and have a high view/reply ratio. What separates a good post from an insignificant one is baseline views. If a thread has been opened 10000 times and everyone has read a certain comment, it's likely to be informative or controversial. The "best of", even within a single topic/thread, is also per-user and temporal. The best-of in a thread to me is no longer a best-of when I've fully internalized it. I really value Reddit's collapse button/link for this reason.