[HN Gopher] Ask HN: Should Hacker News add Sort-By-Controversial...
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       Ask HN: Should Hacker News add Sort-By-Controversial comment
       sorting?
        
       Would you use Sort-By-Controversial comment sorting?  Context:
       Interesting & creative comments get pushed down on Hackernews due
       to popularity-based sorting. Reddit offers sort-by-controversial
       which highlights more creative & stimulating comments. I would like
       to see that applied to Hackernews threads.  Is it worth asking the
       team to add this feature?
        
       Author : tonymet
       Score  : 13 points
       Date   : 2023-02-03 20:50 UTC (2 hours ago)
        
       | gnicholas wrote:
       | I doubt it would happen because this would draw more attention to
       | political statements and other polarizing topics that HN doesn't
       | seem interested in highlighting.
       | 
       | I'd be curious to know what comments you're thinking of that you
       | believe are highly controversial and should be boosted. My guess
       | is there are some, but they are massively outweighed by comments
       | on topics that are inherently controversial.
        
         | tonymet wrote:
         | Let's say a controversial technical detail like "monorepos are
         | good" or "you don't need 100% test coverage" . Or an
         | unconventional business idea like "managers should be more
         | commanding with their subordinates". Those will not be
         | universally upvoted and it would be nice to see unique or
         | upcoming technical & business opinions.
        
       | romanhn wrote:
       | Turning on showdead in the profile is probably the closest
       | approximation. Wouldn't say you're missing much.
        
       | mdwalters wrote:
       | this really should be in hn
        
       | mikewarot wrote:
       | Adding a second dimension to voting is a good start, but I think
       | truth/false should join the interesting/low effort dimension we
       | already have.
        
       | MrMan wrote:
       | sort by new
        
         | tonymet wrote:
         | In the right direction but not the same vector.
        
       | ThrowawayR2 wrote:
       | People would gamify it by actively trying to be the most
       | controversial so no.
        
         | tonymet wrote:
         | Would you call the current popularity contest a form of
         | gamification?
        
       | brudgers wrote:
       | _Reddit offers sort-by-controversial_
       | 
       | It seems to me as if using Reddit is the simplest thing that
       | might work.
        
       | mejutoco wrote:
       | Maybe sort by trending, where it is not about absolute popularity
       | but about the speed at which a post gained votes.
       | 
       | Also, since we are on this topic, I always thought someone would
       | execute better on slashdot's karma system, where you upvoted on
       | different axes for humor, insight, etc.
       | 
       | Having said that, I would leave hn as it is. It is nice to have a
       | stable platform on the web.
        
         | sph wrote:
         | No, we have enough algorithmic sorting as it is. Sort by
         | trending would only result in creating a massive echo chamber
         | a-la-Reddit where short, snappy, uncontroversial comments rise
         | to the top.
         | 
         | In my opinion, Hacker News would have been even better without
         | the karma system. The only thing karma promotes is echo chamber
         | thought, people playing it safe because they love the karma
         | hit, and people playing the troll because they get off at
         | seeing their comment greyed out.
         | 
         | That said, I can't fault pg for adding karma because in
         | 2000-something when he wrote HN the Reddit model was seen as a
         | fancy improvement over forums. Today we know karma systems just
         | cause the signal-to-noise ratio to decrease massively as the
         | user base grows, but is excellent for engagement metrics. I
         | don't think pg wanted to optimise for engagement, but
         | thoughtful discussion.
        
       | millzlane wrote:
       | Couldn't you just collapse the threads and read the comments you
       | find controversial? Do you need someone to tell you which
       | comments are creative and stimulating?
       | 
       | How would you measure which comments are creative and
       | stimulating?
        
         | tonymet wrote:
         | Good tip.
         | 
         | "controversial" on reddit sorts by comments with lots of up &
         | down votes.
         | 
         | I'm usually reading comments from bottom up for this reason.
        
       | xhkkffbf wrote:
       | Definitely. As someone who is sometimes down voted and sometimes
       | up voted, I would say that the more interesting stuff can be sent
       | into oblivion if it rubs a few people the wrong way. The feeling
       | is that everything should be kind of tepidly optimistic.
        
         | tonymet wrote:
         | "tepidly optimistic" - perfect wording here. I've been trying
         | to articulate the "tone" of comments
        
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       (page generated 2023-02-03 23:01 UTC)