The trick is that people can talk however they like, but they cannot mandate that a particular comment rise to the top of a particular scoring scheme. If commentors and voters would both use discretion based on the magazine they are in... but that is a moot point bc that won't happen either.

Short of something like a separate voting scheme (was this comment (a) popular or (b) insightful? or maybe both types can be up/down-voted independently; but then you could sort by either one or the other), I think it will just continue to happen here, even if less overwhelming than on Reddit, due to both different audiences and scales of population.