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Before we delve into the design of our REST API, let's discuss some basic yet often overlooked REST API design principles. We'll quickly go through each of them.

1. REST Overview:
REST stands for Representational State Transfer. In simple terms, REST-compliant web services enable requesting systems to access and manipulate textual representations of web resources using a uniform and predefined set of stateless operations. In essence, a REST API communicates with clients in terms of resources, allowing operations like read, retrieve, create, update, and delete.

2. Resources are Nouns:
The first principle emphasizes that resources, exposed to clients through the REST API, should be nouns. Examples include customer, product, quote, price, order, and comment. When designing URLs, it's crucial to keep this in mind.

3. Plural Nouns in URLs:
Basic principle number two suggests always using plural nouns for resources in URLs. For instance, use "products" and "questions" instead of "product" or "question."

4. Use HTTP Methods Appropriately:
REST-compliant web services have a predefined set of stateless operations represented by HTTP methods. Use GET for retrieving, POST for creating, PUT for updating, and DELETE for deleting resources.

5. Appropriate Use of HTTP Status Codes:
Principle number four highlights the importance of using HTTP status codes correctly. Common codes include 200 for okay, 201 for created, 204 for no content, and various 400 codes for client errors (e.g., 400 for bad request, 401 for unauthorized, and 404 for not found).

6. HETIOS (Hypermedia as the Engine of Application):
HETIOS encourages using hypermedia links for navigating the API. This is crucial for a comments API design.