It was probably suggested before, but the topic is not raised too often so here goes the solution:
- We introduce two types of threads - normal and "controversial/heated/political" (probably there is a better name)
Normal type is for "technical" discussions, where the best answer is accepted as best by some very large percentage of people, lest say 90-99%. The treshold could be a matter of discussion, but you get the idea. So that would be questions like "How to fix dead radiator in PC", "Whats best way to do this or that"
Controversial is for discussion where there is potentially lot of disagreement, but also where there could be just some disagreement, but we want to hear other points of view. So all of the political things, questions about genders, etc, everythign that creates heated conversation. Probably could also be used for humourous topics.
The thread type is set while opening a thread, but it can be changed any time during the discussion by forum moderator
- We leave normal type discussion as they are on reddit/lemmy whatever. For controversial first when user enters the thread, all of the comments are sorted in random order. All of the comments vote scores are hidden. Now user casts votes in "one go". Only until they finish casting votes, other votes are visible for them. Changing already casted votes on these threads is NOT POSSIBLE. They unfortunately cant vote on new comments which were added after they voted. THey are only allowed to vote once. TBH users dont usually come back to threads after they visited them once so its not like we make some common behaviour impossible
This way we eliminate sheep behaviour and demand making their own decision by user. And we force user to be responsible for making a decision. Someone might argue that we sometimes change mind, but it doesnt matter, cause the number of times we change minds is really tiny and the gained changed behaviour is far more valuable. After everything is visible for user they can now sort by most popular comments which is now available.
That should be it. We also might introduce thread freezing if necessary.
What do you think? And also, since lemmy is open source, do you think there is a change that some bigger instance migght create a fork that introduces some of these changes as an experiment?
Yeah, techical should have actually objectively best comments on top. I don't agree that in this category the earliest comment wins. Maybe sometimes, but usually I don't think so. It depends on the size of the thread if people go through the whole section or just small piece. But that's my opinion but to prove it we would need data.
The value in controversial category is that people dont upvote just because others upvote. It demands thought from a user.
I think ultimately it's about whether you want to seek the actual truth and getting somewhere with the discussion or not. Truth can only be discovered when thinking is turned on.