You're getting downvoted because you made a quick hacky fix. You knew it was a quick hacky fix when you made it but you still went ahead. And you implied that you thought it would be too much effort to fix your script to work under "strict" and "warnings".

Take a look at the Pragmatic Programmers' list of tips. Right near the top you'll see "don't live with broken windows". You sounded like you were happy to live with broken windows and a lot of people round here disapproved of that.

So you're not getting downvoted because you asked a beginner question. You're getting downvoted because you strongly implied that you're not a beginner but you weren't prepared to make the correct fix. It sounds like you've now made a start on doing the right thing so you can expect to get some more positive votes.