Consider this: Facebook is remarkable precisely because no matter how big it gets, your experience with it is more or less bounded by your personal circle.
Points are a good proxy for user counts, and over the years I've become more and more aware of the number of people reading and judging. For me, at least, not seeing those points makes HN feel more cozy and private. With points I tended to chase after them rather than learning.
I suspect that this feature vote will be very close. I suggest weighting this vote by contribution of the voter (submissions and comments) rather than raw vote count. After all, this experiment is intended to increase the value of contributions.
Points are a good proxy for user counts, and over the years I've become more and more aware of the number of people reading and judging. For me, at least, not seeing those points makes HN feel more cozy and private. With points I tended to chase after them rather than learning.
I suspect that this feature vote will be very close. I suggest weighting this vote by contribution of the voter (submissions and comments) rather than raw vote count. After all, this experiment is intended to increase the value of contributions.