It doesn’t matter if the most upvoted comment is pro or against subject in discussion. All that matters is bolstering a comment that is minimally compatible with participant’s thinking and making it win against the opposite argument (competing and most voted one).
So it seems that the most satisfactory comment (for most readers) doesn’t really matter at all. What matters, before anything else, is visibility of an opinion that somewhat aligns with one’s thinking, rather than writing or finding the most corresponding comment for that subject, fully compatible with reader’s perception.
Unfortunately this is always the case with platforms that have voting in them. As soon as you get enough traction your comment/post will always be among the top (I would know, I had like 200k+ comment karma on Reddit). It’s way better than the alternative though, having no votes at all would encourage spam and low effort posting and make browsing kind of miserable.
Some people long for the old days of forums where nothing was sorted and everyone had a fair chance at saying what they wanted but it always devolves into low effort posting, spam, and people fighting with trolls. 4chan is evidence of that.
> > > it’s way better than the alternative though, having no votes at all would encourage spam and low effort posting > >
Upvotes only, never show the results, never show people their “karma” count. Let the thread reflect the impact.