Ask HN: Who are the most controversial (yet still popular) HNers?

#1

Post by 19eightyfour » Tue, Jul 04, 2017, 8:52 AM UTC

Popular == karmic, on here. So controversial is, you have a high ratio of spectacularly downvoted comments, but you're still popular, in other words, you still have a high amount of karma. Someone more experienced in statistics than I am at the moment can come up with a good metric for calculating "most controversial (yet still popular)".

I find this interesting because I know that karma causes me, anyway, to be cautious in the opinions I voice, since the downvotes are painful to me. I am interested to see people who are brave enough to not give a s%%t about getting downvoted but are still popular overall.

I'm interested in diversity of opinions, not echo chambers, and people who can combine having their own unique point of view that doesn't follow the crowd, as well as still pleasing the crowd a lot of the time are very interesting to me right now.

Re: Ask HN: Who are the most controversial (yet still popular) HNers?

#2

Post by boyce » Tue, Jul 04, 2017, 9:00 AM UTC

I guess idlewords? Always worth reading his comments

Re: Ask HN: Who are the most controversial (yet still popular) HNers?

#3

Post by guardian5x » Tue, Jul 04, 2017, 9:46 AM UTC

Maybe TerryADavis, he gets a lot of praise and admiration on HN for creating TempleOS, but his comments are often downvoted, and with good reason.

Re: Ask HN: Who are the most controversial (yet still popular) HNers?

#4

Post by sarabande » Tue, Jul 04, 2017, 9:48 AM UTC

One way to calculate this would be to use this controversy formula (https://math.stackexchange.com/a/318510/10887) on all comments of a user whose total karma exceeds a certain threshold, say 1000, and then add up those controversy scores.

The problems is that the HackerNews API (https://github.com/HackerNews/API) only provides a total score for a comment, instead of up and down votes, so you'd have to modify your controversy formula to use an appropriate measure of dispersion instead (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statistical_dispersion).

I'm not a statistician myself, so I can't help further.

Re: Ask HN: Who are the most controversial (yet still popular) HNers?

#5

Post by yason » Tue, Jul 04, 2017, 9:52 AM UTC

since the downvotes are painful to me.

Why?

Re: Ask HN: Who are the most controversial (yet still popular) HNers?

#6

Post by statictype » Tue, Jul 04, 2017, 9:57 AM UTC

yummyfajitas

Re: Ask HN: Who are the most controversial (yet still popular) HNers?

#7

Post by joeblau » Tue, Jul 04, 2017, 10:01 AM UTC

I would throw a vote in for Joshua Stein, person who started https://lobste.rs.

  > I was a frequent reader and contributor to Hacker News since 2007, 
  > but got hellbanned[1] in 2012 for complaining about the mystery-
  > moderators constantly changing submission titles for the worse.

[1] - https://jcs.org/notaweblog/2012/06/13/hellbanned_from_hacker...

Re: Ask HN: Who are the most controversial (yet still popular) HNers?

#8

Post by itengelhardt » Tue, Jul 04, 2017, 10:01 AM UTC

yason wrote: post #5

since the downvotes are painful to me. Why?

I guess it's just the general loss aversion people experience - at least that's it for me.

Re: Ask HN: Who are the most controversial (yet still popular) HNers?

#9

Post by inopinatus » Tue, Jul 04, 2017, 10:02 AM UTC

I disagree with many things that tptacek has to say, but I rarely downvote him. Indeed his remarks seem to be a source of much debate and I find that commendable. In my view, downvoting should not be used to indicate disagreement, but to maintain the relatively high signal to noise ratio this forum enjoys. I reserve downvotes for ambit claims that are patently false, personal abuse, offensive language, wilfully begging the question, excessively sloppy or lazy reasoning, pretending to expertise, or simply being a pig-headed asshole about something. Having myself been guilty of these things from time to time, particular this latter, I feel comfortable suggesting that the majority of this community's members appear to apply a similar standard.

Re: Ask HN: Who are the most controversial (yet still popular) HNers?

#10

Post by shubhamjain » Tue, Jul 04, 2017, 10:05 AM UTC

> I'm interested in diversity of opinions, not echo chambers, and people who can combine having their own unique point of view that doesn't follow the crowd, as well as still pleasing the crowd a lot of the time are very interesting to me right now.

I disagree. It's an overused defence: voicing idiotic opinions is "having a unique point of view"; being rude and domineering is "having an outspoken and blunt demeanour". Your opinions should stand on facts, not your I-don't-give-a-shit attitude. The difference should come from your interpretation of them. Respecting so-called controversial figures leads only to a downward spiral where we encourage bad behaviour.

Hacker news, in my experience, respects different opinions if they carry any weight. A thread on Uber has both who attack and defend Travis Kalanick. Controversial opinions, unfortunately, often means saying groundless shit and later, defending them with "I-am-a-contrarian" attitude.