Popularity is a function of both intensity and time.  What was popular last year is different than what is popular than this year.  

One of the challenges of our community software is that it measures popularity since the time of the items' creation.  An item that was created 5 years and collects 1000 votes is considered more popular than item that was created only 1 month ago and collect 800 votes.   But which one is actually more popular, at this time?  How would you display it, and in what order?