[TweedHeads]

Lack of CSS understanding. No excuse.

Once you know your tools you can do wonders you'll be amazed at how easy it was.

I bet a hundred CSS experts here can give you some interesting ways on redesigning comments.

Show us your best.

[TweedHeads]

Oh gawd, I've never taken a peek under the hood of HN but all these font tags almost made me slash my wrists in despair.

Time to run a "Redesign HN in HTML5" contest,

Reward: a standing ovation, and an iPhone.

[TweedHeads]

Here is what I'd do, start from here:

  <div class="comment level0">
    <a class="up"></a> 
    <a class="dn off"></a>
    <h1>title</h1>
    <p class="minus2">comment here</p>
  </div>

Then apply styles at will, increase padding per level and dimming per negative karma.

I bet code size decreases while readability increases.

[zepolen]

No need to use class 'levels', as nested <li>'s shows in regards to padding.