This is a mechanism to combine polling and comment sections to encourage comments that seek to appeal to those who disagree with the commentator.

There is a poll where the choice is between A or B

You vote for A

The top comment shown to you is by a person who voted for B, but was most upvoted by people who voted for A.

In practice this could look something like this:

There is a poll: Do you support or oppose nuclear energy?

You vote in opposition to it

The top comment shown to you is a comment by a pro-nuclear energy commentator that received the most upvotes from people who opposed nuclear energy

This would reward comments that appeal to people opposed to the argument in the comment. I have proposed this on WeCo (a Reddit alternative that is democratically governed as a cooperative). Anyone can register to WeCo and vote on the proposal for free, and if the users democratically approve this proposal, any programmer is then allowed to develop it and WeCo communities will be allowed to implement it on the platform.

To prevent abuse of the system, moderators could be able to see how each commentator voted.

I am currently looking for individuals and groups interested in fostering better political discussion online to get in touch with.