This is voting on a node. The author of the node should not be a factor in the posting. This is punishing a node simply because it shares authorship with other nodes that you may or may not have liked.

That's what I'm trying to get rid of. Let nodes stand on their own. Vote the node, not the poster.

-- Randal L. Schwartz, Perl hacker

It's not completely parallel, but there are similarities. A lot of my opinion of Bush was formed by the way he handled himself and the way he spoke. Listening to his butchering of the English language did not make me confident in his ability to perform other tasks. I get a similar response sometimes when reading your replies. I get the impression that you're not really a person I would like to meet in real life because of the persona you present. One gets the mental picture of you being a very haughty person who doles out information when absolutely neccesary, and then it's always with the inflection of "why am I bothering with you?" Granted, I'm sure you're not like this, but this is the impression I've gotten from your participation on this site. Every now and then you will provide a sharp answer dulled by some humor, or give a bit more information than the bare minumum. These posts I gladly ++. You must remember that for the majority of the people on PM, this is the only contact with you they will ever get. There's been a heated discussion on a mailing list that I subscribe to about how one needs to conduct oneself in a virtual environment, because (perceived) character traits tend to get over amplified.

All I'm saying is that it's very easy to come across the wrong way in a setting like PM, and you have a tendency to sound demeaning and are very terse. Plus, you can't go through life expecting everyone to like you. I will admit that you're not exactly my idol, but I do refrain from downvoting your notes simply because they're written by you.

Guildenstern
Negaterd character class uber alles!

One gets the mental picture of you being a very haughty person who doles out information when absolutely neccesary, and then it's always with the inflection of "why am I bothering with you?" Granted, I'm sure you're not like this, but this is the impression I've gotten from your participation on this site.

That's really not like I am in person. The people here who've met me in person will certainly tell you that.

I find it curious that you've gotten that impression, and wonder what it is about the medium or the mechanism that so alters how I come across so that you'd conclude that.

This is truly a quest for me. I'm looking at how online communities interact as part of a research project I'm on. That's probably why this personality voting thing has really got my goat, because it seems to be a flaw in an otherwise very useful system.

-- Randal L. Schwartz, Perl hacker