While upvoting better comments is a really good thing, I don't think it's enough. Let's say that instead of trying to give a counter example for your idea, I simply write something like:
"No - that's lame and you should be downvoted, because you're wrong right now."
If that was the last response - everything's fine - the thread gets lost. But if someone tries to explain that I'm not correct, we get a standard war that doesn't really prove anything. If people wanted to upvote "better" comments, then anything after my post could be considered "better" and I can keep the thread afloat by just contradicting everyone (if I don't simply abuse them). I'm still at ~1 vote with every post, but with others being upvoted, we would just grab attention and pull more people into the "conversation"... and that's what I think happens in forums that simply move the updated threads up.
The only way to break that cycle would be to start upvoting most of the other threads... But then what to do if some of them are actually worth upvoting and some aren't?
Now the question is: did I, or did I not try to start a noisy attention grabbing thread just now by saying you're wrong but not in a trollish way (and was it really not a troll post or did I just try to assure you it wasn't by my definition (how meta! ;) ))
I think you're talking about a different problem. And this problem specifically deals with responses to threaded comments that are on top.
I think in this case simply flag it if it seems trollish. Or only allow down votes on responses. Because allowing down votes on all comments introduces a whole new set of problems like majority induced silencing.
"No - that's lame and you should be downvoted, because you're wrong right now."
If that was the last response - everything's fine - the thread gets lost. But if someone tries to explain that I'm not correct, we get a standard war that doesn't really prove anything. If people wanted to upvote "better" comments, then anything after my post could be considered "better" and I can keep the thread afloat by just contradicting everyone (if I don't simply abuse them). I'm still at ~1 vote with every post, but with others being upvoted, we would just grab attention and pull more people into the "conversation"... and that's what I think happens in forums that simply move the updated threads up.
The only way to break that cycle would be to start upvoting most of the other threads... But then what to do if some of them are actually worth upvoting and some aren't?
Now the question is: did I, or did I not try to start a noisy attention grabbing thread just now by saying you're wrong but not in a trollish way (and was it really not a troll post or did I just try to assure you it wasn't by my definition (how meta! ;) ))