As Edward Tufte would probably put it, I feel some fidelity to the comments has been lost without the scores. The score for me added a 'feel of the community' for each of the comments left and that only mattered IFF the comment actually was worth reading.
As to the disturbing situation you mention I'd look to finding a way to make such behavior more shameful.
Contributing to an open source project that you admire will do wonders. Any contribution you do will be scrutinized and you will get some good advice on your works.
Also remember to also hang out and become a regular with the developers on the corresponding freenode irc #channel.
Totally agree. I couldn't believe that TC decided to put the comments system (the only reason visit TC) in a walled garden that is Facebook. I myself have all FB widgets blocked at my proxy so it took me a while to realize why there were no comments when I clicked through.
Delegating the primary form of participation on your site to an outside firm strikes me as a bad idea. Maybe Facebook is paying TC to use their system?
This has happened to every social network that has come before and it will happen again.
Facebook like its predecessors Myspace, Friendster et al., is not the destination but rather the current milestone in the evolution of the Internet, the real Social Network.
Wearables is the idea of changing what we wear with technological augmentation. Watches have had tech for a long time....nothing new here sadly....