>Allowing people to make as much noise as they can is almost as damaging to free speech as censorship.
The thing is, to see that noise you would first have to be on the specific link, want to see comments on it, then go out of your way to install the addon if you haven't already. This is so much better for the people running the websites as they do not have to even acknowledge the comments' existence and are not obligated to moderate anything. Anyone who wants to comment or see them should know what they are getting into. They can grow a skin or uninstall the addon.
Not right now. But I'm hoping to come up with an equivalent of captcha that doesn't need 3rd parties. That way any comment will need a few seconds of the commenter's time (not CPU time).
The thing is, to see that noise you would first have to be on the specific link, want to see comments on it, then go out of your way to install the addon if you haven't already. This is so much better for the people running the websites as they do not have to even acknowledge the comments' existence and are not obligated to moderate anything. Anyone who wants to comment or see them should know what they are getting into. They can grow a skin or uninstall the addon.