Remark: a+b-|a-b| = 2 min(a,b) so your proposal interprets “most controversial” as “largest absolute number of minority votes”. (Not a bad interpretation.)
That’s the condition I was aiming to describe, yes. I was looking for a formula that would pick up posts that had a large proportion of downvotes, but were popular enough to imply a well-fought argument rather than a post that was simply bad.
Remark: a+b-|a-b| = 2 min(a,b) so your proposal interprets “most controversial” as “largest absolute number of minority votes”. (Not a bad interpretation.)
Your math-fu is simpler than mine.
That’s the condition I was aiming to describe, yes. I was looking for a formula that would pick up posts that had a large proportion of downvotes, but were popular enough to imply a well-fought argument rather than a post that was simply bad.