"I would like to clarify my slight disagreement ..."

I would like to clarify my slight disagreement with Stephanie Zolayvar. I think that high-quality comments which offer substantial new support or valid new critique are both valuable for helping ideas/conversations progress, but lower quality or redundant comments can be easily replaced by a system of something like: having a button beneath each post and each comment that says "I affirm that I have carefully and completely read this." Clicking that button would add to the "read by" counter of the post/comment. Once clicked, the button would turn into a simple poll: "I believe this post/comment to be of good quality" (yes, no, shrug), "I agree with this post/comment" (yes/no/shrug). The gradient bar offered above could also be used for these responses. Important additional note which applies to current format of Arbital: Claim: It is important that the responses of others be made visible to non-moderator-users only AFTER said user has made their response. (Premise: this will maximise the independant sampling of community opinion and thus improve quality of resulting feedback.)