I've thought about this a little bit lately, and I've started to believe that it may be difficult to have both; if you let "funny" start to be valued, then it quickly overtakes the other values.
Having spent quite a bit of time on both Reddit comment threads and HN threads, sometimes on the same topics, I find the earnestness and thoughfulness of HN extremely refreshing. At reddit, I feel momentarily amused but then I'm left empty from the total flippancy and lack of substance.
Are you saying the are not as pernicious because they are not as common?
I down vote the same as you, but I would hesitate to assume that the algorithms are tuned one way or the other. In reality it's probably more about velocity or even the voter.
I have noticed the absence of low value comments near the top (except in fresh threads) so to me, it's working.
Having spent quite a bit of time on both Reddit comment threads and HN threads, sometimes on the same topics, I find the earnestness and thoughfulness of HN extremely refreshing. At reddit, I feel momentarily amused but then I'm left empty from the total flippancy and lack of substance.