Something in this discussion made me think again about the nodevote vs. monkvote distinction. The purpose of nodevotes is to highlight to the community those nodes that are worthy and also those nodes that are less so. In that regard, it's not about XP (we've all gotten over the XP thing, right?). So it seems to me that upvoting or downvoting old nodes that we missed for whatever reason (I only just joined this year myself) still serves this purpose.

The thing is we don't even have MONKvotes. There are some feedback mechanisms so that those who write good NODES get rewarded and those that write bad NODES get some disadvantage. But the way it's structured, those are consequences of how you write your nodes. And this is as it should be, I think.

Perhaps, though, since we have now changed it so that voting on old nodes does not punish in the present the monk who wrote them (and may well have learned and improved from it and repented of her or his evil ways in the meantime), we should also consider making it so that the voter on old nodes is not punished either. As stated, the purpose of the NODEvotes is to identify good or bad nodes (and old good nodes are still good and old bad nodes are still bad). I would think current voting to support that system shouldn't be punished; I guess it seems enough to separate the punishment to the node author from the downvote without punishing the voter.

As I stated before I think the spirit of the change is good - to prevent downvoting from being used as a personal attack. I'm not asking that rules change back, but I'm expecting that as the larger community comes to understand the new system, that they might still be allowed to change forward.

(big parentheses - I am NOT anonymonk of Re: History now influences voting. I'm just responding to the discussion as I think of it)