A meme? How about a feature? I want to be able to rate things by DH level.

I've thought of doing that. Maybe. But not all comments disagree, and frankly I wouldn't want to do anything that increased the proportion that do.

You seem to imply in the essay that disagreeing comments are more valuable than agreeing ones, though:

"And when you agree there's less to say. You could expand on something the author said, but he has probably already explored the most interesting implications. When you disagree you're entering territory he may not have explored"

That does not imply they are more valuable; rather, it is human nature to respond to a statement that you feel you can "correct". It is an ego boost, if nothing else.

To me, cooperative, exploratory statements are the most valuable.

"That is a interesting opinion, I've never heard that perspective. But what about case xyz, have you considered that."

In that context, it is much easier to build up interesting information trees, rather than simply staying stuck on one (often minor or irrelevant) node.

I'm not really looking forward to seeing this hierarchy applied as a meme on news.yc.

(DH3 ftw!)

Edit: Irony.

I got it... I thought about refuting you with a higher order argument but couldn't figure out how. Would upvote you, but we all know how that goes.

Oh I wasn't worried about you getting it.

It was just that when I checked back in on this about half an hour later it had already been downmodded, and that just seemed really ironic to me. Glad someone is out there stomping DH3... I would be.

Perhaps it could also work as a help to peer review in academia, or even used to rate the standard of debate in journals?