We already have sections for both popular (up - down > threshold) and controversial (up + down > threshold). Is it that posts are automatically elevated to these states, or does that still need to be done by moderators? Is the throttling of post elevation that EY recently mentioned handled automatically or manually?

If elevation is handled manually by moderators, it seems it makes most sense to keep the tallies private, and let the moderators use bayesian math to adjust for priors. (I personally think that's overkill - might make a fun automation task however.)

The only reason to leave them public is so people can decide which posts to read. There's not enough time in the day for me to keep up with all the posts here -- hell, I can barely keep up with Eliezer's posts on OB.

Instead, it seems they should be kept private to avoid the biases pointed out.

Those like myself will likely only ever read popular posts - at which point it's too late to vote (elevation has already happened), and only occasionally dip into the new or controversial sections when particularly bored. I expect I'm in the majority. (Are we keeping stats of views vs votes? Probably a bit early to tell at this point.)