Hi, Paul, I see this poll is "official," because you are the participant asking the question. I don't think I ever saw the particular threads you noticed that prompted your thread-opening post with the title "Ask HN: How to stave off decline of HN?"

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2403696

in which you said 55 days ago, "The problem has several components: comments that are (a) mean and/or (b) dumb that (c) get massively upvoted." I have never known exactly what the problem was previously. I suppose few people read this site exhaustively now that the message volume is so high.

Since you announced you would experiment with changes in the site,

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2434333

I haven't noticed any inconvenience from comments not having visible scores. I have noticed several threads with much discussion of that meta-issue. And I think you have answered your own question here about the issue of site quality when you say, "I prefer HN without comment scores, because those fights really disturbed me, and they've practically gone away since I hid comment scores." I too like the new way of doing things. Some discussions that I participate in seem to have been better than they would have been three months ago.

But in one thread complaining about lack of visible comment karma scores that was fizzling out as these suggestions were made, several users wondered if a user who had accrued enough karma to upvote, downvote, and flag might be allowed to optionally view comment scores while giving up voting power. That's an intriguing idea. To some participants here, finding the comments with highest point values for skimming threads is perhaps more valued to them than voting. I have thought about that issue for a while. It seems to me that there are several possible responses to the suggestion that voting power be separated from visibility of comment karma scores. Perhaps the learned readers here can suggest other possible responses. In any event, I think it is your call to decide what to do.

If HN offered participants a choice of either voting (without comment karma scores visible) or seeing comment karma scores without having voting power, would that be a good idea? Possible responses include:

1) Yes, then some readers can skim threads for information, while others vote on comments, and everyone is happy.

2) Yes, because readers can skim threads for information, even if that inconveniences voters.

3) No, because comment karma scores are misleading as a guide to what to read. (See the post from just before when the experiment began

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2403696

in which some kinds of high-karma, low-value comments were identified.)

4) No, because everyone should be able to vote, and everyone should have a clue about which comments have a high score (through colors or fonts or approximate scores).

5) No, because the interface should be like it was last month, when everyone could see comment karma scores and could vote based on personal karma.

6) No, because HN users will use sockpuppets to get around any such distinction between viewing karma and voting.

Personally, I haven't committed myself to any one position on this issue, or indeed even committed to whether this is a fitting way to look at how to improve the site. I appreciate you asking for user response, and I wish you all the best in setting site defaults that build a civil, thoughtful informative community on HN that helps innovation flourish.