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I think this is definitely an improvement. Putting any kind of number up there is a game mechanic that will affect people's behavior. My eyes inadvertently go there every time I open the page.

An average does more to encourage the desired behavior than a total does. Even as I am about to press enter here, I can't help but think of whether this post will make that number go up or down.

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In that case you are prefiltering yourself in mere anticipation of potential acceptance from others. If everyone did that, no genuine posts would ever appear: everybody would be too concerned about how much others would like them.

I'd argue that in this community, there is a better correlation between up-votes and the quality of a comment than between up-votes and how much one user likes another user.

I'd also argue that there are only a few topics that are so polarizing that people up-vote or down-vote based on the position the author takes, and that the majority of discussions here aren't as opinionated, and that the number of up-votes a post receives is based on how interesting and thought-provoking it is.

However, it appears that how to display karma is one of the more polarizing ones :)

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