Out of admiration for the PM voting and ranking system described in votes; I am inspired to suggest an implementation along its lines on a website being developed with a team of my friends. So as a proof of concept I wrote this interactive code that accepts: a member's reputation, (u)pvotes & (d)ownvotes, average likes per week as well as age of the node; then decides whether the number of u's or d's would result in reputation gain or loss relative to the current reputation.

As it is the code tests fine but I feel it could still use comments and anecdotal wisdom from the monks here, hence I posted it in Meditations.

use strict;
use warnings;
use Readonly;
use Getopt::Long;
use Scalar::Util::Numeric qw(isint);

#age and avg_xp are calculated at the start of everyday. 
#The avg_xp=sum(XP)/#nodes in the past 7 days.
#The program takes these two values in addition to #likes and #unlikes
+ to dynamically compute reputation gains and losses.
#Input for current reputation is prompted when it is time to update th
+e reputation.

my ($age, $avg_xp,$gained_rep, $lost_rep);
my ($upvotes, $downvotes, $total_rep);
my $current_rep; #variable to hold the current user reputation from th
+e user page.
my $vote;      #a listener:either (u)pvote or (d)ownvote.


Readonly::Scalar my $args =>4;  #program accepts two args & two vals
if(@ARGV != $args){die "syntax error: perl calculate_rep.pl --age n --
+avg_xp n\n";}
GetOptions(
    "age=i"=>\$age,
    "avg_xp=i"=>\$avg_xp,    
    )or die "syntax error: perl calculate_rep.pl --age n --avg_xp n\n"
+;


print "enter u for upvote or d for downvote\n";
while($vote=<>){
    chomp $vote;
    if($vote =~/^u$/i){
        $upvotes++;
        analyze_upvotes($age, $upvotes);
        }elsif($vote=~/^d$/i){
            $downvotes++;
            analyze_downvotes($age,$downvotes);
            }else{
                print "ERROR: enter u for upvote or d for downvote\n";
            }
    }

sub analyze_upvotes{
    my $node_age=shift;
    my $like_counter=shift;
    printf "you have %d likes\n",$like_counter;
    if($like_counter==1){#reward the first upvote
        $gained_rep=1;
        rep_update($gained_rep,"gain", $like_counter);
        $gained_rep=0;
        }
    if($age>2 && $like_counter>1){ #nodes older than two weeks get 1/5
+ rep increase
        $gained_rep+=1/5;        
        if(isint $gained_rep){    #reputation is reported when gained 
+reputation sums to a whole number
            rep_update($gained_rep,"gain", $like_counter);
            $gained_rep=0;
            }
        }elsif($age<=2 && $like_counter>1){ #rep for nodes < 2 weeks o
+ld is calculated with avg_xp perspective
            if($like_counter<=$avg_xp){ $gained_rep+=1/3; }
                elsif($like_counter>$avg_xp && $like_counter<=2*$avg_x
+p){ $gained_rep+=1/2; }
                elsif($like_counter>2*$avg_xp && $like_counter<=3*$avg
+_xp){ $gained_rep+=2/3; }
                elsif($like_counter>3*$avg_xp && $like_counter<=4*$avg
+_xp){ $gained_rep+=3/4; }
                elsif($like_counter>4*$avg_xp){$gained_rep+=1; $gained
+_rep=int $gained_rep; }

                if(isint $gained_rep){
                    if($current_rep-$gained_rep==0){ #for when cur_rep
+=1 and gained_rep=1;
                        rep_update(1,"gain", $like_counter);
                        }else{
                            rep_update($gained_rep, "gain", $like_coun
+ter);
                            }
                    $gained_rep=0;
                }
            }
    }

sub analyze_downvotes{
    my $node_age=shift;
    my $unlike_counter=shift;
    printf "you have %d unlikes\n", $unlike_counter;
    if($age<=2){
        if($unlike_counter<= 3*$avg_xp){ $lost_rep+=1/3; }
            elsif($unlike_counter > 3*$avg_xp && $unlike_counter <= 4*
+$avg_xp){ $lost_rep+=1/4; }
            elsif($unlike_counter > 4*$avg_xp){ $lost_rep+=0; }
        if(isint $lost_rep){
            rep_update($lost_rep, "loss", $unlike_counter);
            $lost_rep=0;
            }

        }elsif($age>2){ $lost_rep+=0;}
    }

sub rep_update{
    my $rep_gain_loss=shift;
    my $status=shift;
    my $like_unlike_counter=shift;
    print "what is the current user reputation?\n";
    $current_rep=<>;
    chomp $current_rep;
    if($status eq "gain"){
        my $total_gain=$current_rep + $rep_gain_loss;
        printf "you gained %d points\nyour reputation is %d\n", $rep_g
+ain_loss, $total_gain;
        }elsif($status eq "loss"){
            my $total_loss=$current_rep-$rep_gain_loss;
            printf "you lost %d reputation points\nyour reputation is 
+%d\n", $rep_gain_loss,$total_loss;
            }
    }
[download]

I am also thinking about changing the way loss of reputation is done by basing it on a variable (say avg_unlike_xp) similar to the avg_xp that I currently use for calculating gain/loss or reputation. If I did this I won't be that benevolent of a dictator any more though as I could risk over-penalizing members.