Comment Re:Often the comments *are* better (Score 1) 267
Humor is pretty subjective - I set "funny" at a -1 and found that it improved the quality of the comments I was reading enormously. Funny posts are still in the mix, just not at the default intensity. This was a lot more of an issue a decade or so back, when the Slashdot Effect was a real threat to websites and the site was practically my home page. These days the sort of shoot-from-the-hip snark that swamped the comments section "above the fold" has migrated over to Reddit, where, depending on the subreddit and subject, I may have to hit the Page Down key up to half a dozen times to get past the jokes, one-liners, and associated snark - all upvoted far past the point where my downvote would have any meaningful impact. While that's where the fun is for a lot of people, I really like being able to de-prioritize that sort of commentary or toss it out entirely - the fact that Slashdot allows for a degree of user-controlled comment display means we're not as subject to groupthink... and I'm far more likely to use my modpoints to upvote deserving comments than I am to spitefully downvote "funny" posts that don't mesh with my sense of humor.