[retsibsi]

Does gold affect the ranking of a comment (i.e. where it is displayed on the page)? I guess I never really thought about it, but I assumed not.

If it's all about the icon displayed next to the comment header, I suppose that's a kind of amplification -- but it seems like less of a zero-sum game, because it's not forcing another opinion out of view.

[T-hawk]

Yes, it does. I think most of the various silly awards they have nowadays don't do it, but at least the original Reddit Gold award before all that other stuff does elevate a post or comment.