You may be wondering why your post right now has a reputation of -22

At least 23 people (or robots) voted your post --. (I voted it ++, to see the rep).

There are a few reasons why this may have happened.

1. Your post has nothing to do with Perl
2. You could have answered the question yourself by typing man -k link and then  man ln
3. Your title is not descriptive. "file link question" might have been better.
4. Your title included the word "newbie"

It may not be obvious to you why these are bad things. Generally people are annoyed when posts show an a lack of effort by the poster. When the lack of effort verges on willfull ignorance, people get nasty.

I hope this helps. For what it is worth, I (mandog) also once hit negative experience points. (though not as many)