I think one of the flaws with the points system is this:<p>A comment that has been down-voted 50 times and up-voted 55 times is not the same as a comment that has been up-voted 5 times. Up-vote and down-vote are not opposites. They are just two flavors of passion; the opposite of up-vote and down-vote is indifference. If a comment is only getting up or down votes, it's a pretty good chance that the person is saying something insightful or everyone likes or there's something wrong with their delivery, or it's a universally unpopular idea.<p>Also, some people say you shouldn't use points to censor an unpopular idea, but not everyone is doing that. It only takes a few people going around doing that to make the community start to suck. Here's a rage-quit by a guy feeling that he was being censored:<p><a href="http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1054044" rel="nofollow">http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1054044</a><p>There should be a way for that guy to see that nobody agrees with him without feeling like he's losing something personal. And people do take their points personally.<p>The ideas of "I agree" and "I disagree" are conflated with the idea of "I think this is a good discussion". Perhaps if you have a back and forth going on, you can show people's votes without affecting karma. The discussion itself might be interesting even if one person is playing devils advocate.