Don't multiply your anecdotes, since your source is just gwern getting banned for a while.
Excuse me? No it isn't. You are mind reading, and incorrectly. (Discussions at that time brought attention to other who didn't wish to bother with Razib.)
but I invite you to inspect the uninformed drivel one can read in the comment sections on some other quality blogs dealing with similar topics.
No. I don't want to compare to a known inferior solution and the endorsement being evaluated was that they were worth reading, not that elsewhere on the web is worse. There is a reason I don't tend to hang out in the comments sections of personal blogs. They aren't an environment that provides incentives for valuable comment contributions and neither lax moderation not vigorous moderation in defense of self interest produce particularly impressive outcomes. Actual 'moderate' and vaguely objective moderation is rare. Lesswrong's karma system is far superior and produces barely tolerable comment threads most of the time.
The karma system in itself is not what made this site interesting, not by a long stretch. While some very bad comments did make it through that now don't, Overcoming Bias before the karma system had interesting discussions as well.
The karma system is a key feature of what made LW what it is, but it isn't exceptional in this. Just as vital where the features of its demographics, the topics we chose, the norms and culture that developed. If any of those wash out LessWrong becomes nothing but a smaller suckier reddit.
If it's worth saying, but not worth its own post, even in Discussion, it goes here.