1. I found the post interesting enough to read fully and contemplate it. Usually I give a vote for good answers, but I also vote for posts that just make me think about an aspect of Perl which was new to me. Sort of like saying "thanks for posting that".

2. I give "encouragement votes" to obvious newbie questions, because they "crave XP" as a measure of their progress in Perl. It makes them feel good and keeps them coming back, which is good for all of us.

3. I vote for anyone who takes the time to post nice code snippets which clearly demonstrate something.

4. I can count the "negative votes" which I've cast, on one hand. I prefer to use "positive reinforcement" than "negative reinforcemnt". If the post is lousy, I may comment to the fact, but I won't downvote it.