"To an extent comment fading and folding already does this (best appreciated after a few days... or years) but it's more intended to decrease visibility of content which doesn't contribute."
While that may be the intention, I'm not sure that it is the case in practice or, if it is, only for those users that do not engage in debates or anything controversial. That's problematic because then there is only discussion on topics where basically everyone is of one mind or when people use anon accounts. In the cases where there is a need for critical comment, which you say Flayrah is here for, the rating system actually discourages it.
Worse still is that, time and time again, we see that people do not even use voting systems in a way that evaluates quality but in a way that reflects their preferences. This is really clear on art sites like e621 and SoFurry where you can find very positively scored artwork that is technically deficient but contains content that people like and negatively scored artwork which is extremely well done but contains fetishes that most people do not like. The same thing happens on Flayrah where people do not vote on comments in isolation but also based on previous comments by the same person, so the idea that the votes reflect some sort of quality of comment is just not true.
I believe I've pointed it out before but that can also be very clearly seen for some users. If votes truly reflected the quality of comments then we would expect to see a normal distribution of comment scores. If someone makes good or bad comments that should be fairly consistent. That is sometimes true but not for all users. If you look at how my comments (as well as some others) are rated you can see a clear bimodal distribution.
5 stars: 47% (1743)
4 stars: 8% (291)
3 stars: 5% (173)
2 stars: 4% (147)
1 star: 36% (1339)
Either that means that sometimes I write comments which are amazing and well constructed and other times complete rubbish but never anything in between. That seems quite unlikely. The more plausible explanation is that the comments are not rated according to quality but according to who agrees with them. That is far more likely but not what you claim the comment rating is meant to reflect.
There seems to be clear evidence that the rating system is not working as intended, I'm not sure there is any real evidence where it is making a useful contribution and, due to the lack of voting on non-controversial articles and comments, I'm not sure it's ever likely to. So what is the point in keeping that system in place?
"If all mankind minus one, were of one opinion, and only one person were of the contrary opinion, mankind would be no more justified in silencing that one person, than he, if he had the power, would be justified in silencing mankind."
~John Stuart Mill~
"To an extent comment fading and folding already does this (best appreciated after a few days... or years) but it's more intended to decrease visibility of content which doesn't contribute."
While that may be the intention, I'm not sure that it is the case in practice or, if it is, only for those users that do not engage in debates or anything controversial. That's problematic because then there is only discussion on topics where basically everyone is of one mind or when people use anon accounts. In the cases where there is a need for critical comment, which you say Flayrah is here for, the rating system actually discourages it.
Worse still is that, time and time again, we see that people do not even use voting systems in a way that evaluates quality but in a way that reflects their preferences. This is really clear on art sites like e621 and SoFurry where you can find very positively scored artwork that is technically deficient but contains content that people like and negatively scored artwork which is extremely well done but contains fetishes that most people do not like. The same thing happens on Flayrah where people do not vote on comments in isolation but also based on previous comments by the same person, so the idea that the votes reflect some sort of quality of comment is just not true.
I believe I've pointed it out before but that can also be very clearly seen for some users. If votes truly reflected the quality of comments then we would expect to see a normal distribution of comment scores. If someone makes good or bad comments that should be fairly consistent. That is sometimes true but not for all users. If you look at how my comments (as well as some others) are rated you can see a clear bimodal distribution.
5 stars: 47% (1743)
4 stars: 8% (291)
3 stars: 5% (173)
2 stars: 4% (147)
1 star: 36% (1339)
Either that means that sometimes I write comments which are amazing and well constructed and other times complete rubbish but never anything in between. That seems quite unlikely. The more plausible explanation is that the comments are not rated according to quality but according to who agrees with them. That is far more likely but not what you claim the comment rating is meant to reflect.
There seems to be clear evidence that the rating system is not working as intended, I'm not sure there is any real evidence where it is making a useful contribution and, due to the lack of voting on non-controversial articles and comments, I'm not sure it's ever likely to. So what is the point in keeping that system in place?
"If all mankind minus one, were of one opinion, and only one person were of the contrary opinion, mankind would be no more justified in silencing that one person, than he, if he had the power, would be justified in silencing mankind."
~John Stuart Mill~