In my short time at the monastery, I have also found nodes to get downvoted for: 1) being too friendly, personal, or chatty, 2) to self-deprecating, as in "I'm just a newbie' or "This is probably a really dumb question, or 3) too off-topic (OT) having little to do with Perl or the charter of PM's (which you will only learn my osmosis).

Abigail-II asked the more interesting question in her very witty node, "why am I getting ++ votes?" That speaks to your point, graff of the "inevitable random component" of the process. We all get downvotes, but if we understand why, we'll get better at asking and replying in a way that benefits all who frequent this online community.