While this post was inspired by the Anonymous Monk above, it in no way is intended to be directed at said poster.
You know, it is truly sad that registered members have to sign in anonymously in order voice unpopular opinions.
I feel your pain. Never underestimate the power of the knee-jerk reaction, as so many monks are wont to downvote just *because*.
If you have a bot, you should be ashamed of yourself. Whether you are upvoting or downvoting, you may not be violating the rules of Perlmonks, but you are certainly violating the spirit. I think that most monks strive to be tolerant, but many here see merlyn and see red. Some saw sierrathedog04 and saw red. While what sierra wrote could easily be offensive to many, let's think about what he did: he stated his honest opinion and was actually trying to make a positive statement. While I might have some reservations about how he said what he said, his post re: Abigail certainly raised far more ire than it needed to. How many monks here have posted with a deliberate attempt to flame?
As for Abigail leaving, I'm disappointed about that, but if someone is going to get irritated leave just because someone wonders about his/her gender, so what?1 There are people starving in Africa. There are nuclear weapons all over the world and the Middle East is in turmoil. I don't think that speculation on one's gender is worth getting worked up about (though sierra could have been a bit more tactful about it).
I have, from time to time, also been the victim of serial downvoting (I'm waiting for it on this node), so I find it annoying, though it's not really that big of a deal. So if you have a downvote bot, go ahead and target me and leave others alone. You won't hurt my rep that much and I'll at least get the satisfaction of knowing that at least you'll be wasting your time targeting me instead of others who have a rep that might suffer.
Summary of above ramble: if you have a votebot, get a life. You're a jerk in my book.
Cheers,
Ovid
1. Out of respect for Abigail's apparent desire to conceal h(?:is|er) gender, I did remove a reference to it on my home node.
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