Bill Baxter wrote:
Another thing is that you can already cast a kind of vote by adding a comment to the bug saying "ouch, this one is hurting". That causes it to appear on the bugs newsgroup, which gives it some renewed visibility. But maybe people don't realize they can do this. Or don't think it matters. Having a "vote here" button may help in those cases. I kinda doubt it, but I'd love to be wrong.
You're right that the comments do matter, because if someone spent the time to write a thoughtful comment it shows interest in it.
A lot of forum software (like reddit) can sort messages by "hotness", "newness", or "controversial". Those provide interesting slices on the database.
