It's just that I had asked tye a month ago to look into this, and his reply was basically that people are free to spend their votes as they wish. So I figured I'd take matters into my own hands, and go public with it, and spend my votes as I wish, consistent with his position.

I'll be watching over the next week or two to see if the situation has been rectified.

Anyone as famous as you is bound to attract negative votes; just think of them as a sort of badge of honor.

merlyn, I understand it's frustrating.

But maybe these things will mitigate that frustration:

• Eventually, whoever is running a "votebot" against you will run out of posts of yours to downvote.  Then they lose.
• You're 2nd on the list, but the list is just a game.  In real life, you're way above any XP list -- you're a magician (and I don't just mean your nickname, but your skills and insights, too), but you're a magician who is still willing and eager to mingle with the common masses in the sharing of that magic.
• The more you show (through inaction) that it doesn't bother you, the more you inspire people to ignore the "small stuff" in life.
• And if, for every downvote you get (even if it's not deserved), you get tons of upvotes, that shows that most people like what you write.

Personally, I've gotten downvotes on a number of submissions; often my best ones (that's my own opinion, of course ;-)).  It's made me realize that I sometimes need to learn to say things in a nicer way, but in the end it's impossible to please everyone.

And I've downvoted you a number of times for things you've said which seemed belittling, or stubborn in their refusal to acknowledge others' opinions.  And though I know you feel that it's more important to be direct (ie. honest) than to be polite, my own feeling is that you might consider trying to be both, where possible.  But again, that's just my opinion.

Ultimately, my friendly advice is don't take it too personally.  The sooner you figure out a way to let it go, the sooner you'll find you can concentrate better on just the important stuff.  And I'll continue to look forward to the excellent help you give to all at Perlmonks.

---

s''(q.S:$/9=(T1';s;(..)(..);$..=substr+crypt($1,$2),2,3;eg;print$..$/

Ultimately, my friendly advice is don't take it too personally. The sooner you figure out a way to let it go, the sooner you'll find you can concentrate better on just the important stuff.

Actually, I consider it an up-stat for myself that I've waited 60 days on this. A few years ago, I would have been furious within the first week. I think there are many here who can attest to this.

-- Randal L. Schwartz, Perl hacker

Personally, I've gotten downvotes on a number of submissions; often my best ones (that's my own opinion, of course ;-)). It's made me realize that I sometimes need to learn to say things in a nicer way, but in the end it's impossible to please everyone.

That's our common experience. It's something I always feel like pointing out when discussions about the voting mechanism arise: it's a strange beast! Indeed the reputation of my nodes rarely corresponds to the value I attribute to them. I got very high reputations on questions that were relatively trivial, and relatively low ones on answers that IMO were well thought and helpful, possibly saying something not commonly heard about some particular issue.

I posted a program under CUFP because I thought that the wit and sarcasm of the thing would have been evident, and it became my lowest reputation node ever, it was under Worst Nodes for quite a while. I understand the reasons why that happened - it was malicious code, but then it was malicious in a self-controlled manner. And it would be just as easy and intuitive to write an uncontrolled DoSer of the same kind that I can hardly imagine my code being at risk of suggesting a way to do so to anyone. But people didn't get it: fiat! Who cares, I learnt a lesson about social behaviour here. I cannot make up the rules at my wish...

Also it's a matter of fact that the more far away from a root node, the lesser the chance it gets a high reputation, irrespectively of its actual value: in most cases I bet that if the tenth answer got say 10, it would have got something like 30 if it were the first one - even if it says something different, and more accurate than all the previous ones. Similarly if it's a few reply-levels deep, where authentic pearls are sometimes to be found. But this is not a rant: it's a meditation about social behaviour - there's nothing in the current mechanism that forces it, and hardly anything that could correct the bias. We have to live with that and try not to worry excessively.

And I've downvoted you a number of times for things you've said which seemed belittling, or stubborn in their refusal to acknowledge others' opinions. And though I know you feel that it's more important to be direct (ie. honest) than to be polite, my own feeling is that you might consider trying to be both, where possible. But again, that's just my opinion.

Indeed I can hardly remember downvoting any of the OP's posts, although I did do so to most of those appearing in this thread, and other two (referenced here), because notwithstanding the fact that I wholeheartedly sympathize with him for the annoyances he is/was undergoing in both situations, I couldn't disagree more on the proposed "solutions" to cope with them.

I have publicly complained for being downvoted with updates to my posts, and will probably do so again in the future, but to the effect of asking why someone were doing so, because of the need to know why...