Ask HN: Should Hacker News add Sort-By-Controversial comment sorting?

[tonymet]

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?

[gnicholas]

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 → gnicholas]

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.

[brudgers]

Reddit offers sort-by-controversial

It seems to me as if using Reddit is the simplest thing that might work.

[tonymet → brudgers]

fair enough but i prefer the perspective of the community here

[ThrowawayR2]

People would gamify it by actively trying to be the most controversial so no.

[tonymet → ThrowawayR2]

Would you call the current popularity contest a form of gamification?

[romanhn]

Turning on showdead in the profile is probably the closest approximation. Wouldn't say you're missing much.

[tonymet → romanhn]

Good tip

[xhkkffbf]

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 → xhkkffbf]

"tepidly optimistic" – perfect wording here. I've been trying to articulate the "tone" of comments

[weird_user]

Maybe you should read less HN if you are constantly seeking interesting stuff - there is never an end to internet surfing.

Also, you might like a curated version of HN: https://hn.build-your-own.org/

[tonymet → weird_user]

This is neat you’re right i would enjoy it

[millzlane]

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 → millzlane]

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.

[mejutoco]

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 → mejutoco]

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.

[sourcecodeplz]

No, because I read them all anyway. I like reading.

[mikewarot]

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.

[tonymet → mikewarot]

i feel like people downvote when they disagree despite interestingness

[_2uwr]

Surprised you dont have a tool for this!

[mdwalters]

this really should be in hn

[MrMan]

sort by new

[tonymet → MrMan]

In the right direction but not the same vector.