Here is my idea of a very simple visual representation that would reflect both the absolute and relative votes. Calculate three numbers: positive (the number of upvotes), neutral (the magical constant 7), and negative (the number of downvotes), then display a rectangle of fixed width and length, divided proportionally into green (positive), gray (neutral) and red (negative) parts.
So a comment with 1 upvote would have a mostly gray line with some green on the left, the comment with 2 upvotes would have almost 2× as much green… but the comments with 10 upvotes and 12 upvotes would seem quite similar to each other. A comment with 45 upvotes and 55 downvotes, or vice versa, would have a mostly half-green half-red line, so obviously controversial.
This is interesting and I would like to see a demo of it. The upside to this suggestion is that since it’s only a visual change and doesn’t actually change the way karma and voting works, it could get tested and reverted very easily, just needs to be built.
This is interesting and I would like to see a demo of it. The upside to this suggestion is that since it’s only a visual change and doesn’t actually change the way karma and voting works, it could get tested and reverted very easily, just needs to be built.
It could even be displayed to the right from the current karma display, so we could temporarily have both, like this: