Judging by my reputation history the best way to reach the 50 points needed to leave comments is (perhaps unsurprisingly) to write some answers! I suggest you find some unanswered questions under tags with which you're familiar.
I actually think the system works quite well; most SO comments are worth reading. One peculiarity of the privileges that I've found is that I'm not allowed to make edits with fewer than 6 characters. I've had to leave some pretty significant typos uncorrected.
Just a point of clarification: users who can edit immediately (those over 2000 rep) can make edits of any length. The length limit is enforced for "suggested edits", which need to be approved by two other users and for which the editor earns +2 reputation.
Haha! Great minds think alike. I just went through a very similar sketching sequence and reached basically the same conclusion!
I've plotted the positions using proportion of max votes (as a proxy for response rate) to account for the different number of voters responding to each poll (with actually counts added). And my axes are reversed!
The bipolar bar chart you're aiming at should be pretty easy to achieve if you first make the dislike values negative. I'm happy to write some code to demonstrate if you'd like.
I think it's far more important that you learn from the things you read and are able to apply those lessons in other contexts. As such, you might not even remember where you first read an idea or even that you read it at all!
I would be worried if you were regurgitating articles at your collocutors. Memorising things rote won't help you to provide relevant insights.
As I understand it, the brain stores memories by the repeated use of synaptic pathways. So don't be afraid to re-read texts and find related material - preparing your argument/ reading-around the topic is vital for making your case. You'll find it easier to recall useful insights from what you've read if you can identify pattern (e.g. by considering how new ideas might work in other contexts - particularly ones you're working on. I've read (somewhere) that it's easier to make sense of quantitative conclusions if you've got a qualitative explanation (or story).
Finally, don't worry about not having author-date-publisher citations to hand (unless you're studying!) - if you've integrated what you've learned into a consistent world view then you will be able to defend/ explain your ideas yourself. In other words: present the idea first, worry about credibile references later.
