Search Results: does weight matter

So, the MHO thing is a point of contention for some people. Many people are a little too quick to firmly insist it doesn't matter (doth ye protest too much?), and in the grand scheme of things it doesn't, but it's a feature that involves numbers that definitely exists.

You probably don't know me, but any sort of "feature involving numbers" is precisely the sort of thing that causes me to think of ways to optimize it. I like games, and MHO is a game. And like all games, when I play them (as long as they are at least a little bit enjoyable) I try to come up with ways to improve them - to balance them.

But MHO has another function beyond just the game - it's also supposed to indicate, to a reader, how much 'weight' the general community has decided that a person's opinion carries. But there are shortcoming with the current setup.

So, this is what I've come up with for MHO:
1) The current system is simply the number of MHO divided by total number of questions answered. That is your percent MHO. In the setup I'm proposing, first this would have to be renamed to "MHO rating," or just rating. For now, you can think of this rating as just the percentage, but I'll explain the differences. Whatever your percentage is will always be the minimum rating you can obtain.
2) Any opinions given after the MHO is already assigned for a question would no longer count towards the MHO rating.
3) At any point, the question asker has the option to disable MHO. They can never re-enable it, but a disabled MHO also does not count towards the MHO rating of those who have given their opinion on it.
4) Certain types of questions would automatically have MHO disabled (i. e. the 'how do I look?' questions).
5) The effect receiving MHO has on your rating is increased on questions for which there are more opinions.
6) By contrast, the effect that not receiving MHO has on your rating is decreased for questions in which there are more opinions.

I'm nearly out of room, so I'll explain 5 and 6 in an update.