I thought it was working well without points until this morning.

With this ASK HN post (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2444709 ) about the best credit card payment method I would typically immediately go and look at the comment scores.

Because a vote for a comment is typically a vote for the thing being recommended.

It's really a "poll-like" question except it can't be a poll because the OP doesn't know the options in advance.

Other than that one problem though,I found I was judging people's comments more thoughtfully without the scores.