Consider this point: why do we have PerlMonks, anyway?

To learn and improve Perl and related practices. I cannot recall seeing you post code and I have disagreed with every practice argument you've made recently. I propose that we eliminate monks who do not include code in at least 50% of their non-meditative posts.

A great many other sites on the Internet have made the decision to eliminate down-votes. Should we not?

No. We should not. “A great many other sites” online are dung heaps frequented only by gluttonous flies. This is the only site I visit where one must have the chops or the backing evidence to speak out or be clobbered with same. Like JavaFan—who I seem to be channeling—and others, I've been considering “leaving” to put my surplus dev time into more rewarding areas. Losing downvotes would seal the deal.

I cannot remember the last time I agreed with Argel++, the monk I stalk with downvotes, but he was right on previously in this thread: Instead of trying to remove the ability to down vote, you should be meditating on how to become a better Monk.

sundialsvc4 not posting code isn't the problem. He argues alot of theory and pedagogy and he makes you think twice if your current code or current design the best one you can use.

he makes you think twice if your current code or current design the best one you can use.

Were it the case, I'd be upvoting rather than downvoting him.

Trouble is, most of the time, he's not providing the service of a quick reality check, but rather the disservice of a bum steer down a blind alley of long redundant, archaic knowledge.

And for the record, there are at least 100 other unique examples, and many, despite-corrections, repetitions I can cite.

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With the rise and rise of 'Social' network sites: 'Computers are making people easier to use everyday'

Examine what is said, not who speaks -- Silence betokens consent -- Love the truth but pardon error.

"Science is about questioning the status quo. Questioning authority".

In the absence of evidence, opinion is indistinguishable from prejudice.

The start of some sanity?

I personally like some of sundialsvc4's insight (as always in life though, I don't agree with all of it), but thanks to this being Perl, there's always Tim Toady ;)

With that said, given this is a site about programming Perl, and that we are almost all here to see code, I believe that code wins arguments.

When we search, we naturally gravitate toward those threads and solutions which have positive votes, because these positive votes represent assent to what has been said.

You can't see vote counts without having voted, so I'm not sure how you gravitate to threads with positive votes. In fact, I'm pretty sure that's not how the site works at all.

You can see the relative reputation of the direct children of each node, by selecting "Best First" under Note Configuration in your User Settings. (Of course, Anonymous Monk can't do this.)

Yes, you can see relative reputation, but you know neither the differences in reputation nor the endpoints of the scale. A thread could have only negatively rated replies, such that the top sorted node is the least negative.

That's unlikely, but you can't know for sure.

It's because here at Perlmonks, programming IS a team sport. :-) as opposed to your OpEd: Programming is not Team Sports. Each of us monks has a certain specialty, just like players on a team, and the synergy of that team input is what it's all about.

When you downvote someone, it's because they made a bad play. If you don't have that negative option, the play gets sloppy.

If you do have someone who downvotes you out of spite, just accept it as your karma, maybe you've been acting bad in your other life, and the spirits get on your case. Or, you could join the Monastery under a few other names, and go around upvoting yourself as compensation. :-)

Finally, isn't there something called "dog voting" where your voting priviledges are curtailed if your negative votes get too high? Why does the XP nodelet say that I have "dog" votes left?

"Or, you could join the Monastery under a few other names, and go around upvoting yourself as compensation. :-)"

Joking aside, this is against the site rules.

Perhaps I am raising this issue once again because nothing has been done.

We didn't ignore you. We disagreed with you.

Do not mistake the continued existence of downvotes for inertia or neglect. They are still here because the monks as a whole have made an affirmative decision that we believe the site is better for their being here, not because we did nothing.

I would argue that none of these are the case.

I have to disagree. People use PerlMonks for all those reasons, and many more.

People want to have a say in a node's reputation. And if there is no -- vote, then those who would like to see the reputation of a node depressed have no more influence than those who don't have an opinion either way. Indeed, no more influence that those who have never even read the node. That's not fair. That is why we have downvotes.

I completely concur with jdporter.

A minimum zero votes has the potential impact of eliminating great posts from a threshold and being overlooked just because they were posted on a thread from three weeks ago that we aren't looking at anymore. This could cause a situation where a fantastic post is rated equivalent to a shiaty post, solely because the great post hasn't ever been seen yet, and we can't chastise the 'crappy' ones.

Most likely these will be “errors of procedure,” or momentary personal squabbles that took place maybe four, six years ago.

Downvotes are also for (to varying degrees, depends on your pet peeves): spam nodes, errors of fact, blatant disregard for formatting, inappropriate (flame/troll), homework / job interview cheats, etc.

Errors of procedure, at least as I understand it, are cause for consideration not downvoting. There's not a whole lot of procedure around here, but posing in the wrong section comes to mind.

One thing that does bug me is when people post the same question repeatedly, and fail to notice all the replies they got the previous time(s). The urge to downvote such posts increases exponentially with additional repeats.

Yes he can. He just risks losing XP (which could be overcome with a half-way decent post or two).

Elda Taluta; Sarks Sark; Ark Arks
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If he keeps downvoting his XP will go to 0 over time and he can't vote at all then putting an end to his mass downvoting. Your right he would have to contribute daily with posts to counteract the negative XP. Unless the ratio isn't 1/3rd and the RNG that perlmonks uses has been hacked :-(