Related to this, I imagine there are readers such as myself who tend not to engage in conversations so much as offer specialist information on sometimes obscure technical matters. Subjects that even high karma members aren't particularly qualified to have an opinion on.
For example I recently gave a short comment on the PonoPlayer submission that never made it to the front page. For the rare soul that read that submission I indicated the electronics details that indicated how it was distinguished from your usual consumer electronics. That information would be lost from what I see here.
From my own experience, I often won't offer comments unless it seems to me that a contradiction to an existing comment or stream of comments is required, if I feel there is an error. While this system would require best argumentative practice in comments, for clarity and to avoid bias traps and so on, I do hope it doesn't lead to an excess self referentiality.
For example I recently gave a short comment on the PonoPlayer submission that never made it to the front page. For the rare soul that read that submission I indicated the electronics details that indicated how it was distinguished from your usual consumer electronics. That information would be lost from what I see here.
From my own experience, I often won't offer comments unless it seems to me that a contradiction to an existing comment or stream of comments is required, if I feel there is an error. While this system would require best argumentative practice in comments, for clarity and to avoid bias traps and so on, I do hope it doesn't lead to an excess self referentiality.