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imafraidofmuricans t1_j4mltvh wrote

Reply to comment by member_of_the_order in New suicide hotline 3 digit 988 receiving half a million more calls texts, and chats since starting than prior 10 digit number by Inkling2424

But a percentage tells you even less.

"40% increase in replies to your comment!" when you go from 1 comment to 4.

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member_of_the_order t1_j4mn5qe wrote

Going from 1 comment to 4 isn't an increase of 40%, that's an increase of 300%.

With small numbers like "replies to a single reddit comment", yeah, percentage is barely helpful. But when dealing with big numbers like "number of calls to a national emergency number", percentage is more helpful than raw volume.

An increase of 0.5 million from 0.25 million is way different than from 20 million. The difference in percentage (200% increase vs 2% increase) tells you how effective the increase is relative to the original.

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