What is the benefit of getting a certain number of upvotes on comments? The tooltip says it means that the comment is "useful", but how is someone rewarded for posting useful comments?
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1When there's a bunch of comments, the userful/userul - heck, useful comments get to the top of the list while non-voted ones are hidden.– Mathieu GuindonCommented Aug 17, 2013 at 14:20
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2 Answers
There is a Pundit badge, which is silver and awarded for ten comments with five upvotes or more each.
Other than that, there is no reward. This is by design - comments are "second-class citizens." We want to focus on the questions and answers here, not the comments.
answered Aug 17, 2013 at 14:20
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Thanks for the Badge info Doorknob,but sometimes the comments notify us for any important part of question or answer. Commented Aug 17, 2013 at 14:22
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4How would comments notify you of important parts of a question or answer? Important stuff should be edited into the question/answer. And you certainly shouldn't earn reputation for "plz check my edits kthxbai" Commented Aug 17, 2013 at 14:23
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1@Harshal If it is important, it should be edited into the question (if it is a clarification) or put in an answer if it is one. Moderators routinely destroy comments if there get to be too many or if they are obsolete/off-topic, so you should put important stuff in posts.– DoorknobCommented Aug 17, 2013 at 14:24
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yes sometimes comment can notify their mistakes of question or give small solution, however this is not the topic of debate, I got the answer Commented Aug 17, 2013 at 14:29
Quoting the FAQ post :
When there are many comments on a post, some comments are hidden when the page loads, and there is a button to “show N more comments”. The comments with the fewest upvotes are hidden first. The threshold depends on the number of comments on the post and on the number of answers on the page.
When there are a lot of comments, any important information in them tends to get lost. To minimize loss of any important or useful information, comment upvotes come into play.
No reputation of any kind is earned or lost from comment votes, though the Commentator badge is is awarded for leaving 10 comments, and the Pundit badge is awarded to those who left 10 comments with score of 5 or more.
Comments are however, by design, second class citizens, which is why there is no rep to gain for writing good comments. Ideally, any or all useful information should be available within the post body.
Then why the badges?
Bronze badges generally exist to motivate users to familiarize themselves with the system and how it works. Comments are an important part of the system, even more so on meta sites.
The silver badge exists to promote good behavior, that is, correct usage of the comment feature. Its there to motivate users to write useful comments and not contribute to the noise.
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3So indeed, the benefit is above all for the readers who come late, and can quickly tell which comments are probably important.– ArjanCommented Aug 17, 2013 at 16:05