Suppose you wanted to generate a list of HN users who consistently provide high-quality comments.
What metrics would you use to construct your formula?
Ask HN: How would you sort HN users by quality of comments?
1–10 of 28 posts
Re: Ask HN: How would you sort HN users by quality of comments?
#2Maybe something like
(# of comments upvoted - # downvoted) / (total # of comments)
or
(total # of upvotes - total # of downvotes) / (# of comments)
You could tweak this to say that downvotes get heavier weight, say.
You could also look at number of replies, but a flamebait comment could also get a large number of replies, so that might not be a good metric.
You could also look at the number of times their posts have been flagged.
None of these are foolproof. You're probably going to have to experiment to find something that you think gives sane results.
I admit that I'd like to see your results...
Re: Ask HN: How would you sort HN users by quality of comments?
#3"Squawk to Talk" ratio
Squawk = number of words in your hacker news comments
Talk = number of words in children of your hacker news comments
Re: Ask HN: How would you sort HN users by quality of comments?
#4Maybe something like (# of comments upvoted - # downvoted) / (total # of comments) or (total # of upvotes - total # of downvotes) / (# of comments) You could tweak this to say that downvotes get heavier weight, say. You could also look at number of replies, but a flamebait comment could also get a large number of replies, so that might not be a good metric. You could also look at the number of times their posts have…
I believe your idea makes sense. With time, people may learn a way around it however. One technique I use, is that if I were going to post something controversial, I just put it on a random domain and submit it as an article. Article submissions are only subject to flagging and not downvotes.
Re: Ask HN: How would you sort HN users by quality of comments?
#5Read their comments, decide if I like them.
Re: Ask HN: How would you sort HN users by quality of comments?
#6"Squawk to Talk" ratio Squawk = number of words in your hacker news comments Talk = number of words in children of your hacker news comments
What denotes good though? I can imagine scenarios where either high or low squawk/talk could be good...or bad.
Re: Ask HN: How would you sort HN users by quality of comments?
#7what do you mean by 'consistently' ?
Re: Ask HN: How would you sort HN users by quality of comments?
#8An aggregate metric based on comment karma scores would probably be the most useful. That said, you will need other HN users to grant you access to their accounts to be able to get this data.
Re: Ask HN: How would you sort HN users by quality of comments?
#9"Squawk to Talk" ratio Squawk = number of words in your hacker news comments Talk = number of words in children of your hacker news comments
That metric would seem more useful to find controversial comments, not good comments.
Re: Ask HN: How would you sort HN users by quality of comments?
#10"Squawk to Talk" ratio Squawk = number of words in your hacker news comments Talk = number of words in children of your hacker news comments
I don't agree with this. Some people write comments that are completely false or outdated, which is followed by a series of corrections and tangential discussions.