[Chris2048]

Ok, forget "community" then. Point is, there is no agreed "The opinion of HN" in dead comments.

dead comments are not representative in general of HN since the downvotes/flags outnumber the upvotes/vouches.

[mr_spothawk]

That presumes all members vote & have down vote privilege: which is not true in either case.

[th4dv]

This is an excellent point. Sadly, people who share less popular opinions will (probably) never get to the point when they can start up/down voting. So the only way to get these "superpowers" is to join the HN circle jerk.

[Chris2048]

That's only True if you constantly make unpopular opinions, such that they outweigh your regular ones. There are all sorts of neutral comments that can be made, a point a piece..

[Chris2048]

depends on what you consider to be a member. If there wasn't a karma cap, it'd be easy to sock-puppet-fake the votes.