There is such an observation: sometimes the topics appear, which, despite the fact that they receive a large number of negative votes, are very actively discussed in the case. It’s not so much discussed that all the readers unanimously declare, they say, what a bad topic and how many minuses it can be, and vice versa: they actively discuss the topic with each other, earn from each other mostly pluses for their sensible comments. That is: the topic receives a large number of minuses, the author receives minuses to Habrasile, and even to karma, and a large number of commentators receives an extensive and positive topic for communication.
And here there is such a dilemma for the author: to save habrasila and karma it would be worth removing the topic from the publication. In order to preserve the spirit of Habr and in order not to break off communicating people, the topic should be left. ')
I personally encountered such a manifestation of this phenomenon: the topic scored more than twenty negative votes, Karma suffered a bit, but! the second day went, as the topic is actively discussed, comments are more than 100 by reading the comments, I left the topic, damn it with them, with scrappers, let people communicate. I like the comments, some reasonable, some funny - well, as usual, in general. But it was lucky for me and karma suffered lightly, but what about those who have their karma taken away at all and at the same time continue to happily and actively communicate?
I do not know how to change this, but I propose a decision in this light: the number of comments somehow influences the overall assessment of the topic so that the author, who provided the topic for active communication, was not forced by circumstances to remove the topic from the publication, or even be driven into a minus and lost the ability to publish.