I agree. I reply to comments because I feel the overwhelming urge illustrated by http://xkcd.com/386/ , not because I think the comment will be seen or ignored.
I for one think this is a good move, though the best part of the recent change is not so much the username highlighting, but the capping of negative karma at -8.
Referring to the recent thread where I was being seriously downmodded, with this cap I probably wouldn't bother defending myself (and creating all that "waste of space"), because -8 or -16 is not all that much karma.
Counterpoint: I read the thread to which you refer, and while I didn't agree necessarily with some of what you said, or some of what the others said, it was insightful to me to see both sides of the argument spelled out in more detail.
I think this makes the comments more compelling, and helps us to get to know the other users a little better.
Yes, different sides of the argument is definitely what makes a thread interesting. I think downmodding comments that people disagree with needs to be discouraged. I'm guessing people have become accustomed to doing this on other sites like Reddit, but that's not what it's for here.
>"I think downmodding comments that people disagree with needs to be discouraged."
i completely agree. it might explain this in the guidelines, but it needs to be written right where people evaluate. maybe the first time someone votes they get a pop-up with the vote guidelines, kind of like sudo. it pops again once every two months as a reminder.
it's really hard not to see voting as opinion tallying rather than comment goodness. that's what voting is used for everywhere else.
I for one think this is a good move, though the best part of the recent change is not so much the username highlighting, but the capping of negative karma at -8.
Referring to the recent thread where I was being seriously downmodded, with this cap I probably wouldn't bother defending myself (and creating all that "waste of space"), because -8 or -16 is not all that much karma.
Thanks!