yet almost all of them have zero comments from readers.
I suspect that’s more to do with the rather silly (IMHO) decision that only those with a little blue P can comment on front page stories. Often leads to the situation where there’s a nice big thread already running on a topic, and lo, STW publishes their take on it some days later. No comments from readers on the latter. Now, one can hardly expect STW to keep up with absolutely everything, of course, but the lack of comments on front page articles is a commercial decision, not an editorial one.