To be fair, the off-topicness of such posts might well be why they get targeted. Almost every post I have ever made about votes has gotten downvoted before upvotes came along a short time later.

As you point out, it doesn't really matter; and for me, it's simple. The only goal I've ever had here beyond getting advice and offering help -- which one might argue are the basic privilege and duty, respectively, for anyone of Monk Mind -- was to make Friar so I would be eligible to help out with some of the administrative tasks necessary to keeping PerlMonks alive and well.

Downvotes are highly unlikely to jeapordize that status, so the votes themselves aren't the important part to me. It's the patterns of human behavior that fascinate me -- and, based on the number of conversations I've had on the topic in the past few weeks, apparently they fascinate me greatly.

Truthfully, this particular threadlet should probably be in Meditations or PerlMonks Discussions, but it has also just about run its course, I suspect.

Have a great day, I think I'm done with this for awhile. Back to helping others with what Perl I do know.  :-)