[geeklog-devtalk] Idea for another comments system

[Ray Heasman]

Hi,

I have an idea for another comments system. I don't think it should
necessarily replace the current one, but I can see great utility for it
for websites with highly controversial content (eg. Political commentary
sites).This all grew out of watching the political blogs during an
election year.

My theory is that people will take 20 minutes to write a reply, so they
should be ok with taking 10 seconds to click on some radio buttons. Each
comment form will have the same set of questions:

The questions will look something like this:

I agree with the main article:  Disagree (1) (2) (3) (4) (5) Agree
The main article is based on correct assumptions: ....
The main article uses good logic: ....
I agree with the comment to which I am replying: ....
The comment is based on correct assumptions: ....
The comment uses good logic: ....

These will be used to build up a n-dimensional map of all registered
commenters. Commenters that share the same world view will tend to be
clustered together. Clusters will be assigned groups.

Each commenter will be graded as per the following:

Select all other commenters that are not part of his group, and use
their grading to generate a rating for this commenter. Thus, each
commenter is graded by all his most skeptical peers.

Then, for each person viewing comments:

(All percentages should be tweakable, because I don't know exactly what
mix would be best)

1) If they are registered:

80% of the comments they will see will be selected from the top comments
in the same group. ie. They will see comments with which they generally
agree, and are rated highly by members of other groups.
15% of the comments the see will be from highly-rated members of other
groups.
5% of the comments will be randomly selected.

2) If they are not registered:

They will be shown all comments by members with a rating in the top 30%
of all comments.

The rationale is this:

1) All people feel comfortable, because they feel like their group is in
the majority. My observation is that humans try hard to match their
opinions with the group.
2) All dissenting comments they see will be of very high quality,
hopefully forcing them to examine their own views a bit.
3) Random selection of comments means that all groups get a chance to
rate all commenters and comments.

The idea is to depolarise the commenting population by subtly making
everyone see points of view that are reasonable but that they don't
necessarily agree with. Also, each person is only rated by people that
don't share his world view, so groupthink is discouraged at an indirect,
fair, and abstract level.

When it comes to trolls:

Trolls will quickly cluster themselves away from the main groups, which
will also regularly rate them low. When looking at comments, trolls will
only be able to see people that agree with them, or other trolls. Other
groups consisting of people that would tend to rise to trollbait will
hardly ever see the troll's comments.

Does anyone have any suggestions on how best to start working on this,
or on the idea itself? I am happy to write the code, but a gentle push
in the right direction would be great. :-)

Cheers,
Ray