Agreed. I tend to find highly odious this entire phenomenon wherein great scads of people reflexively downvote anything that suggests that XP and node voting have a purpose beyond looking funny. The knee-jerk, pre-programmed "XP is only for fun and not speaking about!" seems somewhat anti-intellectual to me. The "punishment" of people for daring to ask questions about it is bothersome.

Gee, look. I opened my trap and let the terms "XP" and "voting" come out. I'll surely get downvoted. It's absurd that saying anything about XP or node voting other than "Ignore it! I [pretend to|do]!" should so readily and automatically draw the ire of so many unthinking lemmings.

PS: Merry Chrismahanukwanzaaka, Solstice, Festivus, Yule, Feast of Fools, or whatever.

I tend to find highly odious the phenomenon wherein people make grand claims about the supposed behaviour patterns of others and then regard it as their calling to draw equally broad sweeping conclusions from aforementioned unsubstantiated statements. Are you bitter or something?

Where did you observe this pattern? Many nodes concerned with examining the meaning of XP and the etiquettes associated with voting have gotten high amounts of upvotes. My own top-voted node is among them. I have upvoted many a node talking about XP and I have equally downvoted many a node talking about XP.

I am getting somewhat irritated at the constant barrage of complaints about XP we've had of late, with some people claiming it's all about the XP and others claiming talking about XP automatically invokes a backlash and so on and so forth — but always with the implication that anyone who votes or doesn't vote or upvotes or downvotes or whatever else they may or may not be doing is acting as they do because they are a lemming.

Maybe, just maybe, it could have more to do with the merit of the node in question, and not so much with the species of the voters?

Grow up, people.

Makeshifts last the longest.

Are you bitter or something?

No, not in the least. Disappointed, sure, but not bitter. In fact, I'm in a fairly good mood, all things considered, and have been for several days. Are you bitter?

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Where did you observe this pattern?

Err, gee. I think I noticed it at PerlMonks. The trend, as I indicated, isn't simply to downvote mentions of XP, but to downvote them if they suggest that XP does/should serve some purpose besides sideshow freak. It especially applies to any mention of XP that involves an expression of dissatisfaction with the way that people vote and how the system currently in place fosters certain voting patterns. I'm not here, in this instance, to say anything about that myself, except insofar as it is self-referential. Whether or not the XP system "works" in general, there is a definite problem in the way people treat discussions of the XP and voting system itself, where anything other than a rosy-viewed expression of love or a dismissive expression of disregard for XP and voting automatically gets marked for special attention (generally speaking: I'm sure exceptions exist to even this rule).

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I am getting somewhat irritated at . . . some people . . . claiming talking about XP automatically invokes a backlash

Perhaps the sheer regularity, quantity, and ubiquity of such references might indicate something other than worthiness of your disdain. I'm sure there aren't legions of people poised over their keyboards just salivating at the potential opportunity to lie about an XP-system discussion blind spot in this community. Perhaps you think there is such a plague of (mysteriously motivated, to be sure) rampant dishonesty.

I never said any particular vote makes anyone a lemming. Rather, it's lemming-like behavior that leads to the nearly ubiquitous trend toward downvotes of anyone that dares to bring up a topic that is taboo for no logical reason that is discernible to me.

Somehow, I sincerely doubt that 98% of nodes (72% of statistics are made up on the spot) that meet my description are all lacking "merit". Wow, what an incredible coincidence that would be. In fact, in my own opinion at least, a minimum of about 50% of such nodes that I've seen treated thusly were perfectly reasonable and fairly well-written.

Then again, since I expressed dissatisfaction with some trends in voting practices, I guess I'm automatically wrong and should "grow up". Your ad hominem avoidance of valid logical argument certainly puts me in my place.

print substr("Just another Perl hacker", 0, -2);

- apotheon CopyWrite Chad Perrin