Another factor in ranking of comments (apart from "average karma" of the poster, and of course the points it's received) is simply its length! The longer, the m

Another factor in ranking of comments (apart from "average karma" of the poster, and of course the points it's received) is simply its length! The longer, the more it counts. I think it's there to promote deep and lengthy discourse, not one-line, "Stupid article. I stopped reading at [x]" kind of comment. Source: experience.