Compare the comments on this site with the ones you see on reddit, where a sarcastic one-liner or a good meme reference can get thousands of upvotes. From my experience of actually writing comments on reddit that have gotten thousands of points - the less thought you put into them the better they'll do. The same is not true on HN where long and well thought out comments do better, and one-liners often get moderated. In my opinion, HN comments are much more valuable as a whole because of that.
I must be in the lower echelons of this secret HN club, because I cannot see the score on any comment. I thought it was the general and public absences of meaningless internet points that kept the comment system of HN in check.
