I'm pretty new to doing YouTube videos, but i'm up to about 30 videos on my channel now, and i've got enough views to attract plenty of comments. And i was just wondering... are comments worth it? A lot of them just seem to be people flaming each other's views, or plugging their own channels and videos.

My videos are not in the least bit controversial, by the way. They just show different locations. One of them is for a museum, for example, and rather than talk about the museum, the comments have evolved into a discussion about museums in general, and how they supposedly "steal" artificats from other countries. This has pretty much descended into a flame war -- none of which has anything to do with my video, or even the video's location.
The video has also attracted a number of dislikes, which i'm pretty sure relate more to the comments than the video. Lots of people are arguing, and if they dont agree with what the others are saying then they naturally click 'dislike'.

My question is this... does the number of comments on a video help you -- enough to make you ignore the content? Is it worth keeping them turned on just for the ranking boost? and what about 'likes'?

To be honest, I'd rather just switch those things off completely, because i cant be bothered with the hassle.