The basic idea would be to illustrate the relative contention over a node rather than the tally of plus and minus votes. This would be a measure of how controversial the node is rather than any absolute measure of its generated approbration or opprobrium. This value would be visible before actually voting on the node.
I provided the following illustration:
| ++ | -- | Total vote | tension |
|---|---|---|---|
| 100 | 5 | 95 | low |
| 10 | 5 | 5 | low |
| 5 | 100 | -95 | low |
| 5 | 5 | 0 | low |
| 100 | 100 | 0 | high |
| 20 | 20 | 0 | medium |
| 50 | 20 | 30 | medium-high |
In response, giulienk provided an interesting attempt at an empirical formulation of the idea. I played with it, but it was not quite satisfactory, especially since it seemed coarse-grained at lower magnitudes.
The core issue is capturing the magnitude of opposing votes. 100 positive votes and 0 negative represents no contention. 5 positive and 5 negative represents some, but not huge contention. So I employed Occam's Razor on the formulation and decided:
- All non-opposed votes have no effect.
- The remaining delta serves as an effective indicator of tension
- Further qualification (low, med, high, etc) might be unnecessary
Formula: $t = min($plus, $minus) * 2
Recasting the original example, this would yield:
| ++ | -- | Total vote | tension |
|---|---|---|---|
| 100 | 5 | 95 | 10 |
| 10 | 5 | 5 | 10 |
| 5 | 100 | -95 | 10 |
| 5 | 5 | 0 | 10 |
| 100 | 100 | 0 | 200 |
| 20 | 20 | 0 | 40 |
| 50 | 20 | 30 | 40 |
This accurately captures the magnitude of contention without revealing, beyond bare necessity, the actual votes cast.
Questions:
- Is this something other monks would like to see on pre-voted nodes, perhaps as an option? What about while considering a node?
- If interested, what better ideas (if any) can we come up with for representing tension?
Matt