IMO comments shouldn't even be rated this way. Posts full of useful information score less than one-liners of opinion; controversy is an automatic point-killer. I'd just turn it off, or separate it into categories, like "agree with sentiment", "insightful", "funny","troll", etc., a bit like Slashdot. A score of 1 could mean anything from "nobody has read it" to "controversial"; it could be flamebait or very useful.

Voting stories up or down is also much less helpful than it could be. Some are a little bit useful, some are great, but you can only give them 1 point regardless.

Imagine IMDB: "103823 people liked this movie." "892 people liked this more obscure movie." A better rating system would make a lot more sense.