Every designed system has unforeseen weaknesses that, when discovered by the alert or very bored, may be taken advantage of in ways that seem or may in fact be morally bankrupt. Gaming a system often becomes more fun and profitable than participating legitimately. (Insider trading, vote-bot operation, borrowing a dog to attract chiX0rs...)

An excess of XP-Whoring means more time is spent talking about the voting system than talking about Perl. I've got no problem with that -- this is a "Perl community", the second word's as important as the first. Everyone who ever spent quality time here has the potential to go on to found their own community, so avoiding discussion on sociotechnological phenomenons like "trolls", "karma/XP-whoring", and "reaping" is short-sighted.

My view is that hacking a social system is as good for said system as hacking a poorly secured box -- short-term bad, long-tem good. Anyone who XP-whores PM merely for XP is no better than a cracker stealing cc #s, while the people poking at the system trying to find new ways to get XP are XP-Hackers.

e-mail neshura