Thanks for your comment, marinersk. I am really no fan of Stack Overflow, I find it messy for a start, and I share your reservations, although a bit confusedly, I would not have been able to express them as clearly as you did. I certainly not advocating that PM should follow SO's model, I think that we have a different culture. I have never posted anything there, be it a question or an answer, and I doubt that I will ever do so.

My only point about SO was that it was useful, when blindly "googling" on a specific technical problem, especially on a problem where I have really little knowledge, to see upfront the rating of the various answers, even though such rating does not necessarily say it all. But, at least, if the answer has been significantly down voted, I know I should be careful about the answer, and, conversely, if it has a high rating, then the answer might probably be worth attention on my part. That was my sole and only point.

The only thing I sort of dislike about the current voting system at PM, is that I would need to up- or down- vote a post to figure out how other monks have assessed a given post. Sometimes, I would just like to know. But, as I said before, I know that seeing upfront the reputation might induce a sheep-like behavior. There is trade-off here, no solution is perfect.