This. SSC comments I basically only read if there are very few of them, because of the lack of karma; on LW even large discussions are actually readable, thanks to karma sorting.
Over the years I’ve gone through periods of time where I can devote the effort/time to thoroughly reading LW and periods of time where I can basically just skim it.
Because of this I’m in a good position to judge the reliability of karma in surfacing content for its readability.
My judgement is that karma strongly correlates with readability.
This. SSC comments I basically only read if there are very few of them, because of the lack of karma; on LW even large discussions are actually readable, thanks to karma sorting.
That’s an illusion of readability though, it’s only sorting in a fairly arbitrary way.
As long as it’s not anti-correlated with quality, it helps.
It doesn’t matter if the top comment isn’t actually the very best comment. So long as the system does better than random, I as a reader benefit.
Over the years I’ve gone through periods of time where I can devote the effort/time to thoroughly reading LW and periods of time where I can basically just skim it.
Because of this I’m in a good position to judge the reliability of karma in surfacing content for its readability.
My judgement is that karma strongly correlates with readability.