>If so, they're silently voting, not engaged in the comments.

it's blatantly obvious with political submissions (which, imho, should be summarily banned from HN)

"Random nobody says X is le good" gets upvoted all the way to the frontpage within minutes with zero comments

"New research suggests X is not le good" gets [flagged] as soon as it gets traction.

where X is one of those many things that terminally online, emotionally unstable people feel strongly about.