My prior expectation would be:
A long comment from a specific user has more potential to be interesting than a short one because it has more content. But,
A concise commenter has more potential to write interesting comments of a given length than a verbose commenter.
So while long comments might on average be rated higher, shorter versions of the same comment may well rate higher than longer versions of the same comment would have. It seems like this result does nothing to contradict that view but in the process seems to suggest people should write longer comments. The problem is that verbosity is per-person while information content is per-comment. Also verbosity in general can’t be separated from other personal traits that lead to better comments.
You could test this by having people write both long and short versions of comments that appear to different pools of readers and comparing the ratings.
My prior expectation would be: A long comment from a specific user has more potential to be interesting than a short one because it has more content. But, A concise commenter has more potential to write interesting comments of a given length than a verbose commenter.
So while long comments might on average be rated higher, shorter versions of the same comment may well rate higher than longer versions of the same comment would have. It seems like this result does nothing to contradict that view but in the process seems to suggest people should write longer comments. The problem is that verbosity is per-person while information content is per-comment. Also verbosity in general can’t be separated from other personal traits that lead to better comments.
You could test this by having people write both long and short versions of comments that appear to different pools of readers and comparing the ratings.