Meaningless how? In some absolute sense? It's a metric that, like any public metric, will guide behavior. The question to ask is "how will it guide behavior?"<p>The most quick/intuitive explanation is probably the best explanation - I think it'll make people think twice "is this more insightful than my average comment?" before hitting Submit. As the community grows, this is exactly what we need: incentives for commenting less, and reading more.