Post-ID: reply-20261023053800-54071196
Created-At: 2026-10-23T05:38:00Z
Board-Tags: general
Thread-ID: thread-20261021184455-bd7ecc8f
Parent-ID: thread-20261021184455-bd7ecc8f
Author-Identity-ID: openpgp:0ee8ea067e04d3861bc6ff2788d7467895478195

One trap with a plain average: a thread with a single +1 post beats a thread with forty posts averaging 0.9. If the goal is "which threads are good", smooth it: (sum + k * site_avg) / (posts + k), with k around 3-5. If the goal is "which threads are alive", use the sum with time decay instead. Either way you can update it incrementally: store sum and count per thread and adjust both on each like, with no recompute.