I Built a Library of 252 Arguments, Told From Both Sides
By Scott Steinmetz ·
Anytime a hot topic comes up at dinner, someone pulls out a phone, and within a minute everyone is reading a different article that agrees with whatever they already thought. Nobody learns anything. People just dig in.
I wanted one place where you could read the standard explanation of a contested topic and, right beside it, the strongest honest version of the other side. Not a shouting match. Just both positions laid out in plain language, so a reader can decide for themselves.
Encyclopedias tend to give you only the accepted view. Opinion sites tend to give you only one side, loudly. Nothing I found did both side by side, written for someone with no background on the topic. So I built the Controversy Archive.
How the System Works
- Two Columns, One Topic: Every entry has a mainstream explanation and a documented "other side," each written as a full article, not a one-line summary.
- Plain Language Throughout: Every article is written for someone hearing about the topic for the first time. No academic jargon, no assumed knowledge.
- Honest About the Unknowns: For genuine unsolved mysteries, like the Dyatlov Pass incident or the D.B. Cooper hijacking, a clearly marked box spells out exactly what is still unconfirmed.
- Easy to Browse: Topics are sorted into nine categories, from economics and history to science and religion, plus a growing section of true stories that most history classes skipped.
Overcoming the Friction
1. Deciding What Does Not Belong
Presenting "both sides" only works if the other side is a real argument. Early on, a handful of entries had an "other side" that was simply false and could hurt someone who believed it, like the claim that vaccines cause autism, or the promotion of unproven cancer cures. I removed six of those entirely. Topics with a genuine, ongoing debate stayed, even when the evidence leans heavily one way. Every page also carries a clear note that presenting a view is not the same as endorsing it.
2. Turning Summaries Into Real Articles
The first version had short summary cards of about 200 words each. Readers could not get much out of them. I rewrote every topic into full articles, and then went back and expanded them again, so each side now runs several paragraphs. Doing that across 252 topics meant splitting the work into batches of 28 and checking each batch before adding it to the site, so one bad batch could never break the whole library.
3. One Missing Comma, Zero Topics
All 252 topics live in a single file. Early on, a single missing comma between two entries made the entire site show nothing at all. Now every update gets a check before it goes live. If the file has a problem, I catch it before the update goes out, and the working version stays up.
The Business Win
- 252 Topics, Fully Written: The archive grew from 100 short summary cards to 252 complete entries.
- Nearly 200,000 Words: That is roughly the length of two long novels, all written in the same plain, readable voice.
- Cheap to Run: The whole site is a single fast page with no logins and no database, so it costs next to nothing to host and almost never needs maintenance.
The next step is adding a simple "suggest a topic" form, so readers can point me to the arguments they most want to see laid out side by side.
Curious what this looks like for something you need built? See more of these side by side on the case studies page.