I note that most of these threads are started by two or three monks, and wonder how these monks can be more fascinated, and more endlessly fascinated, by the voting mechanism than they are about the actual topic at hand. It's a vote system. It's as consequential to the monastery as doorknobs are to a cathedral. Use the feature if you like. Move on with your life.

I'll sit back with some popcorn while I watch people polish those (*)-- downvoting doorknobs on this comment.

You get a ++ from me for this. How many times i have i seen "newer-ish" monks come up with topics about the vote system, such as this one, just to garner more XP for themselves? Lots. My recommendation to such monks is stop quibbling about the site mechanics and community and instead start contributing. Code, reviews, tutorials, and SoPW questions that will hopefully generate answers that will benefit many. Spend your energy GIVING to the Monastery, not taking.

However, i must admit that this particular node has received quite a lot of responses ... still, i would have rather seen a new tutorial or piece of code instead.

jeffa

L-LL-L--L-LL-L--L-LL-L--
-R--R-RR-R--R-RR-R--R-RR
B--B--B--B--B--B--B--B--
H---H---H---H---H---H---
(the triplet paradiddle with high-hat)

Sincerely, I fear you won't enjoy your popcorn - it seems to me that you express your point without being rude at all.

OTOH, Perl Monks Discussion (which usually collects this kind of stuff) and the other sections of this site are clearly separated or easily separable, even in more "aggregated" places like The Monastery Gates, Recently Active Threads and Newest Nodes. IMHO this, together with the node's title, allow easy skipping of annoying questions without getting no harm at all. You don't need to exit from the monastery library if you don't want ;)

I'll personally continue to give a look to Perl Monks Discussion - maybe because I could be one of those two/three monks you talk about, but surely because I'm interested into this community dynamics in addition to the good stuff one can find. I like to think that much of the site's usability comes from users feedback, which ask features that can be considered silly or unuseful most of the times, but that could be really great ideas and eventually get implemented. Which would mean that we could be able to use the real stuff easily or more effectively, which I value most.

Flavio (perl -e 'print(scalar(reverse("\nti.xittelop\@oivalf")))')

Don't fool yourself.

You seem to confuse unrelated problems. I'd like to be able to find the nodes I upvoted, because it would be a sort of "My Preferred Nodes" list. It may prove useful. It has nothing to do with my XP or reputation.
BTW, if you're not interesting in Perl Monks Discussion, just don't read it, why rant about instead? Be consistent.

It's easy to assume that I am not interested in site discussion, but that would not be accurate. I am merely annoyed by endless rehashing of the same topics, instead of applying any real or novel insight.

As for sorting by which nodes you've voted, I'll risk repeating myself: vote freely and don't worry about it. In a year, you'll have thousands of results, and no real indication which +1 is better than another +1. Any claim of real value in searching that way is truly dubious.

--
[ e d @ h a l l e y . c c ]

When there is a really interesting discussion going on with lots of good replies, I might spend more, but on the whole I don't have the time to consider so many nodes that could spend all my votes in a day.

The majority of the small number of votes that I normally cast are used to upvote good questions, good replies and clever obfus.

P.S. I don't downvote since I believe that it is more useful to encourage a good post than to discourage a bad one. Someone who posted a bad one will eventually learn to post a good one... but someone who posted a good one should realize it is a good one (to remember how to post good ones) and upvoting is a good way to do this.

At almost the same rate as you (the OP), about 15 votes per hour.  Which means most days all my votes are used up long before The Mighty Post of Greatness for the day comes along...  :/

I get 30 a day, and save mine for answers that I think are well thought out and truly help the OP master the knowledge they are asking for. Some days I spend 0, others as many as 15, but rarely use my full 30. I also don't like XP from upvoting other people's nodes.

With 40 votes, it does take a while to use them all. Often I'll go through a longish thread, ++'ing as I go along and the thread unfolds. Occasionally I run out of votes, but not very often. It's 1115pm in Toronto, and my voting visits to Perl Monks are usually evenings, as I don't have the time or the patience to visit during the day.

As long as you are spending you votes on nodes that deserver them, and not just spending to get rid of them, because that isn't really enriching the community at all..

C.

You're exactly right and I wasn't clear. I am giving them out carefully and I go out of my way to find posts I think are worthy of being up-voted. In addition to making me read through the nodes more carefully I get exposed to more data. I still consider myself very new to Perl and the more ideas I can swim in the happier I am.

As for down-voting - I believe I did that once and felt bad about it, so I just don't do it anymore. I believe it's more constructive to reward people for the good than to punish them for the bad - but sometimes they do need a kick in the pants.