monkdiscuss mojotoad Recently, buried in [Front Page with Negative Rep..] we had a [id://167249|discussion] regarding the concept of a <em>Node Tension</em> value display for any particular node. <p> 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. <readmore> <p> I provided the following illustration: <p> <table border=1 cellspacing=0> <tr><th>++</th><th>--</th><th> Total vote </th><th> tension </th><tr> <tr><td>100</td><td>5</td><td>95</td><td>low</td></tr> <tr><td>10</td><td>5</td><td>5</td><td>low</td></tr> <tr><td>5</td><td>100</td><td>-95</td><td>low</td></tr> <tr><td>5</td><td>5</td><td>0</td><td>low</td></tr> <tr><td>100</td><td>100</td><td>0</td><td>high</td></tr> <tr><td>20</td><td>20</td><td>0</td><td>medium</td></tr> <tr><td>50</td><td>20</td><td>30</td><td>medium-high</td></tr> </table> <p> In response, [giulienk] provided an interesting [id://167443|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. <p> 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 <em>some</em>, but not huge contention. So I employed Occam's Razor on the formulation and decided: <p> <ol> <li>All non-opposed votes have no effect.</li> <li>The remaining delta serves as an effective indicator of tension</li> <li>Further qualification (low, med, high, etc) might be unnecessary</li> </ol> <p> Formula: <code> $t = min($plus, $minus) * 2</code> <p> Recasting the original example, this would yield: <p> <table border=1 cellspacing=0> <tr><th>++</th><th>--</th><th> Total vote </th><th> tension </th><tr> <tr><td>100</td><td>5</td><td>95</td><td>10</td></tr> <tr><td>10</td><td>5</td><td>5</td><td>10</td></tr> <tr><td>5</td><td>100</td><td>-95</td><td>10</td></tr> <tr><td>5</td><td>5</td><td>0</td><td>10</td></tr> <tr><td>100</td><td>100</td><td>0</td><td>200</td></tr> <tr><td>20</td><td>20</td><td>0</td><td>40</td></tr> <tr><td>50</td><td>20</td><td>30</td><td>40</td></tr> </table> <p> This accurately captures the magnitude of contention without revealing, beyond bare necessity, the actual votes cast. <p> Questions: <p> <ol> <li>Is this something other monks would like to see on pre-voted nodes, perhaps as an option? What about while <em>considering</em> a node?</li> <li>If interested, what better ideas (if any) can we come up with for representing tension?</li> </ol> Thank you for your time,<br> Matt