Cool! I guess this means that I get a chance to see "ack" a little less often since you will use your votes against him rather than me!

Or maybe not.

Now I dislike blind enthusiasm based on the person as much as the next person. (Possibly more in fact.) Specifically I will be the first to say that merlyn and I see eye to eye on some things and not on some others. (If you can't guess what we don't agree on, and you are not merlyn, then it is none of your business.)

Now I saw the chatter comment. I took that as typical Randal. When he sees comments that he thinks are good, or makes ones he cares about, he publicizes it. Was the mention of merlyn the reason for the ++? I rather strongly doubt it. Rather it was a description of nodes that he wanted people to look for in Newest Nodes and think about. Certainly plenty of posts that mention merlyn have been passed by without comment.

I don't know your definition of a "Merlyn Groupy". Do I count? I admit to making a point to look at what he writes, and I vote for him reasonably frequently. OTOH I have a specific reason for each ++ and I will post a correction any time I think he made a technical mistake.

Of course he is hardly the only person that I make sure not to miss posts by. A short list of some of the others in no particular order? tye, btrott, lhoward, chromatic, jcwren, Ovid...and plenty more!

Now are there people who will ++ anything that he writes? Unfortunately, yes. I don't like that either. But a blanket -- is just as bad if not worse than a blanket ++.

If you think people are misvoting, speak up! I certainly did when I thought that people shouldn't vote a blanket ++ for me to counteract the blanket -- votes I was getting! But it really doesn't help if you (whoever you are) start misvoting just because someone else does!