If I may be so bold, it's not a chat room here. If you agree with some post and don't have anything more substantial to say, consider just upmodding it.

Usually, yes. But donna is the OP, so I think it's ok for her to acknowledge helpful comments rather than anonymously upmoddng.

And this thread is bringing out a behavior on news.yc that I really don't like -- people downmodding recent comments of the OP because they're mad they can't downmod the post.

Do you think the fault lies in the practitioners, the system, or both? (This is not a rhetoric question.)

And how do you know those downvotes have all to do with the submission and nothing with the comments themselves? Personally I downmodded for lack of relevance.