if we encourage trash comments just as much as we encourage great ones, then we'll indulge in it growing and evolving
You point out something important here. By supporting comments that are irrelevant or that are transparently showing that the content has not been read, we kind of give a wrong incentive. I will have to think about that. I like comments but sometimes I don't want to waste my time answering comments of people that haven't read what I posted....