The posts I see voted up the most are those that show one or more of the following:

1. Questions that show the poster did all their homework, RTFM, STFW (search the friggin web), and still is having problems.
2. Deep questions, either programming philosophy or deep into Perl, which shows some serious thought to even notice the question.
3. Helpful, friendly, "monk-like" responses.
4. Humor and self-depreciation.
5. The first correct answer.
6. The most in-depth answer.
7. The node which answers the questions that should of been asked.
8. Nodes about vroom, new features to Perl Monks, ways to improve the community, congratulatory messages, etc.
9. Contrivesial nodes that monks feel they need to defend.
10. Well documented nodes with lots of links to other nodes, documentation, or other sites.

Many of these are actually behavior that, IMHO, we actually do want to encourage. Not all - a dry factual node will probably be voted less then a vigorous debate about our community, no matter how wonderful the factual node because it does not catch the attention and imagination of the monks. However, just like a good teacher can make a subject interesting, a good monk can make a node interesting. That same fact, posted well, can spread it's message to more monks, and in the process get voted up more.

Everyone wants their posts to be well received, and that will shape how they post them. It takes courage to post something you know will be unpopular, and probably end up in negative rep. I was very plesantly surprised when I did that, and it actually got ++s because of the disucssion it caused. I think that seperates PM from /. or many other online communities.

As we grow there will be more popularity contests. We need to work to keep our feel and friendliness. Will there be 'karma whores'? Most assuredly. But let us not blind ourselves to the good of the voting system, and the excellent posts that do get upvoted.

=Blue
...you might be eaten by a grue...