“Now about those star powers. The editors are the only ones who can give you a star, and we’ll be giving them out to the commenters we trust the most. This means that many people who have stars now will be losing them. But for those who keep their stars, your comments will automatically appear in the featured comments, and you will have the ability to promote non-star comments up to the top level. In fact, just replying to a comment will bump up to the front page. You’ll also see all of the unapproved comments left by new users and can approve the ones that you think are up to snuff. But use your powers wisely. We’re going to be taking a closer look at who’s doing what. Use your star powers to make mischief, and we’ll take them away.”
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A smart reworking of Gawker comments: hand the good users some trust, and you can hopefully avoid setting up an elaborate voting system just to get the best comments to display first.
