The overriding principle that I use when voting on nodes is to see the Monastery as a respository of knowledge. Each node in the Monastery has a reputation which measures how useful and accurate the information in it is. I therefore vote up nodes that make useful points and demonstrate interesting methods. I vote down nodes that contain bad advice. Sometime, if someone else has already made the point then I won't explain my down-vote.

A side effect of this policy is that I am quite happy to vote up or down Anonymous posts as they are just as likely to contain good or bad advice.

"Perl makes the fun jobs fun
and the boring jobs bearable" - me

My $1/50 :

I cast downvotes for the following reasons:

• If a question is asked without any effort put towards trying to find the answer
• If a question is posted with a un-informative node name (e.g. "HELP! PLEASE!")
• If an answer is given that doesn't work
• If an answer is not given, just criticism or abuse
• If someone is a snotty bastard for no apparent reason & the content value doesn't outweigh how annoying they are
• If an entire node is written in 37337 5cr1p7
• If a node is a 'fluff node' intended just to garnish that one extra vote you needed to get to n XP
• If the node is a joke node & isn't funny (but I haven't done this yet so...)

Personality voting is counter-productive towards the value of the perlmonks site in general. It's like when the Communists came to power in China & Mao started burning all of the works of Confucious. You're trashing a RESOURCE. For the most part the people here are informative & try to be helpful. Don't give them crap unless they deserve it and then only on the point where they deserve it.

I for one, downvoted merlyn's posting about who was on-line when he was personality-downvoted. Not because I don't agree that there's a problem, but the CB is the right place to express that & a node that lists suspects is a waste of a node. But that's the ONLY time I've EVER had reason to downvote Merlyn-sama. I've probably upvoted him more than anyone else, just from the sheer volume of good postings of his that I have read & learned from.

It does however bug me to see Monks like Merlyn & Tilly actually getting upset about the fluctuations in their XP. Sure it's a virtual slap in the face, but it's not like it changes your status AT ALL. Nor does it change how others percieve you on this site or otherwise. It just seems unimportant. IMHO...

Just my 0.33Euro thought ;-)

I globally aggree with your point of view, most the reasons you give to downvote seem legit to me :

• If a question is asked without any effort put towards trying to find the answer
• If an answer is given that doesn't work
• If an answer is not given, just criticism or abuse
• If someone is a snotty bastard for no apparent reason & the content value doesn't outweigh how annoying they are
I understand that some may bother you (more than it bothers me) and leads you to downvote (but I won't downvote for this):

• If an entire node is written in 37337 5cr1p7
• If a question is posted with a un-informative node name (e.g. "HELP! PLEASE!")

I understand that It may 'scramble' the info and be considered has something to be fighted (although I prefer /msg to educate in this case)

But some doesn't seem so legit IMHO :

• If the node is a joke node & isn't funny (but I haven't done this yet so...)
• If a node is a 'fluff node' intended just to
• that one extra vote you needed to get to n XP garnish
They are way too subjectives !
How will you be sure that you didn't miss a joke
(I did once and downvoted tilly !!)
Are you sure you have all elements to find if a post is funny ?
(where you on the CB just before davorg made is pony AM post ?)
How can you be sure that someone is posting to gain XP and not only to be kind or add something (an info/nuance that again you may miss...)

Don't get me wrong !
I'm not saying that what you do is bad,
I'm just defending the Idea that if there's any chance that a post may be legit, we must not downvote it.
It MAY seems a way (not funny/XP whoring) and not be just like it seems...
There's enough "good" reason to downvote why not to stick with those ones ?

As a last word, a downvote is only useful if you explain why you donwvote (hint use /msg ;-)
Be brave enough to do it, I wasn't always but I try.
Try it too, and you'll see that you'll soon focus on ++ then...

"Only Bad Coders Code Badly In Perl" (OBC2BIP)

I don't downvote posts with bad information. I reply or send a /msg to the author.

I don't upvote very much either, generally posts from newer users that answer a question well or provide an alternate approach worth considering.

I don't downvote posts with bad information. I reply or send a /msg to the author.

I think this is an excellent way to go, because it gives the author the chance to correct the information (certain types of root nodes notwithstanding). For me, anyway, chances are more likely than not that I've found the "reply" link while short a few days of sleep, or something. I appreciate being given the opportunity to correct such nodes.

--
Me spell chucker work grate. Knead grandma chicken.

I frankly don't care if I'm ++'ed or --'ed. In the case of a negative vote, I especially don't care if it's by someone who doesn't have the bawls to leave a little note as to why they chose to down vote me.

In my opinion, your opinion matters if you can back it up. If you're just shooting your mouth off, I have no problem flipping the bozo bit on you.

I read this forum to learn, as do many others. I don't need popularity, especially the kind generated by sycophants and those that feel that they, as supposed holders of knowledge, have the right to judge my opinions and questions.

My ignorance is quickly remedied, and I will be motivated to remedy it that much quicker by an ego that needs deflating.

C-.

• Your post SUX0RZ
• You tree-huggers are all the same
• You fascists are all the same
• Your (sic) too big for your outlandishly large Nederlander britches
• I'm hungry
• My mother is very shrill

e-mail neshura

Perlmonks - we cater for every type.

I'm continuing my habit of downvoting any post complaining about downvoting, upvoting, karma whoring or pretty much anything to do with the unfairness of XP though.

____________________
Jeremy
I didn't believe in evil until I dated it.

Ah, yes, but if someone wanted to downvote and individual, they could write a script that "searches and distroys" nodes that are posted by that individual. Unless you post at least 12 (the number of votes for scribe) or more for higher ranks, they can easily down vote all your nodes, including any posted in the past. Of course, any one doing this would be the most pathetic person on the planet.
Anyway, the only way that I would complaine about a downvote would be if it kept knocking me out of the next level. Then again, I guess I wouldn't really care, my experiance doesn't matter much to me, I usually don't use all my votes, and I'm not much of a hacker yet anyway. however I would be nice to be able to post a picture (level 5) soon.
I think that we should all just stop complaining about the voting system. "Can't we all just get along!"

Stuffy
That's my story, and I'm sticking to it, unless I'm wrong in which case I will probably change it ;~)