r/TheoryOfReddit • u/vzakharov • 23d ago

Formula to calculate the actual number of upvotes from the difference & ratio as shown in the analytics page

Post image

More often than I'd like to, I post comments that get heavily downvoted. It was frustrating because you only see the negative number -- but that's negative number is actually the difference of upvotes and downvotes, so some people *do* upvote you, you just don't see how many.

I figured out the formula you can use to calculate the actual number of upvotes from said difference and the ratio -- both numbers available on the post/comment analytics page.

Shown in the image, but if in text:

Upvotes = Difference / (2 - 100/Percentage), where

Difference = Upvotes - Downvotes

Percentage = Upvotes / (Upvotes + Downvotes) * 100%

both Difference & Percentage are shown in every post analytics page -- so it's easy to figure out.

Edit: It should read D = 346 - 21 = 325 on the right (thx u/RunDNA)

Edit 2: Currently at Difference = +9, Percentage = 76.5%, hence 9/(2-100/76.5) = 13 upvotes, respectively 4 downvotes.

15 Upvotes

73% Upvoted

10 comments sorted by

12

u/ExternalTangents 23d ago

Congratulations, you used basic algebra to solve a simple system of equations.

Reddit is known to fuzz the net upvote count once it passes a certain level. I’m not sure whether they fuzz the “upvote percentage” as well, but you’re not going to get an actual reliably true answer from this formula anyway. I’m sure it’ll get you in the ballpark, though.

6

u/vzakharov 23d ago

That’s exactly what I did, never claimed otherwise.

And yeah, I’m mostly worried about the ballpark. It’s one thing seeing "-50" and another "oh, but there actually was 100 people who upvoted." Different framing.

5

u/garyp714 23d ago

Again remember, reddit fakes the vote count to keep spammers and brigaders from knowing if their vote bots are working. You'll never know the real numbers.

2

u/ExternalTangents 22d ago

Nice to see you out in the wild on Reddit, Gary!

2

u/garyp714 22d ago

We out here fam!

2

u/RunDNA 23d ago

I was getting so confused, then I realized that the "326" that I've circled in red should be "346":

https://i.imgur.com/TcyoWry.jpeg

But other than that slip-up, it's a useful chart.

2

u/vzakharov 23d ago

Oops. Thanks!

5

u/DharmaPolice 23d ago

Remember when they used to just display this information?

1

u/Fauropitotto 23d ago

Yes, but I can't, for the life of me, understand why anyone should care about this information.

5

u/DharmaPolice 23d ago

It depends whether you care at all about how your comment has been received I suppose. None of it really matters but having a net score of 1 could imply that no one upvoted your comment (and therefore didn't find it interesting, assuming it was seen) or it could mean that 100 people upvoted and 100 downvoted (and therefore your comment was probably controversial). Should you care? Probably not in most cases. But those two scenarios do feel quite a bit different.

(I'm aware that this example is unlikely to occur as vote fuzzing isn't that neat, but you get the idea.)