[A little SQL fiddling on the query](https://data.stackexchange.com/stackoverflow/query/146562/comment-hiding-algorithm-w-weights) - This one shows the computed weight and factors for comments (sorted by weight, then creation date).  

The top `N` rows in the results are what will be shown (where `N`=5 for main sites, 15 for meta) - I'm using Creation Date as the tie breaker value when multiple comments have the same Weight. Everything else would be behind the "view/add more comments" link.

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**TODO (for someone feeling ambitious)**: Play with tie-breaker algorithms.  
It's possible that Score would be a better tie-breaker than Creation Date.  
A modified "weight" (just summing score, length, age) may also work well.