Your comment is missing the point. I know about sampling bias, and I'm aware that the points are representative of the subset of people who read that particular comment (or didn't) and decided to click a button. These are all facts that go into my interpretation of the data. But it's still data!
And the data was useful to me, in my own interpretation. Why is everyone so determined to convince me that comment points weren't useful to me? You're not qualified to determine that, because you are not me. And I'm telling you, they were useful to me. I can't make it any clearer.
Frankly, how I interpret the data is none of your concern. If you're afraid that other people will misinterpret the points and assign some false value to them, I can't do anything about that. It's simply a shame that the solution is to take away data from everyone, because you're afraid some will misinterpret it.
But hey, if making HN less useful for me makes it more useful for everyone else, then I guess you can disregard everything I've said.
And the data was useful to me, in my own interpretation. Why is everyone so determined to convince me that comment points weren't useful to me? You're not qualified to determine that, because you are not me. And I'm telling you, they were useful to me. I can't make it any clearer.
Frankly, how I interpret the data is none of your concern. If you're afraid that other people will misinterpret the points and assign some false value to them, I can't do anything about that. It's simply a shame that the solution is to take away data from everyone, because you're afraid some will misinterpret it.
But hey, if making HN less useful for me makes it more useful for everyone else, then I guess you can disregard everything I've said.