I don't want to get involved in anyone's flame war, but I'd like to try to give you a different perspective on a few issues, partly because this touches on some voting system questions we were yammering about early this morning in the CB:

- I personally never vote on anything but the node in question, for any user, no matter how much their single post pissed me off. I believe, you see, that to go beyond that and hunt down other posts is perverting the system, which is NOT to rank people but to rank nodes (and I've seen some rank nodes, let me tell you... ;-). I think that if the system is to work, everyone must vote just on the node. If that node is bad, it will sink, and if good, it will be raised. If the author of that node persists in writing stuff that is, on its own, bad, that author will get a lot of -- over time. This is actually a good thing IMHO.

- I don't believe in permanent enemies. All the XP that metaperl gained could just as easily have been gained by princepawn, but you didn't give it a chance. I could be wrong, but from what I've seen here, the community is more than willing to help someone who is willing to help himself.

- Any recent retribution you have detected against metaperl is simply due to people not liking being fooled, and like it or not that is what you did by adopting a new name. You could have publicly changed your name and nobody would have cared. I understand that you think that would have transfered your reputation to the new name, but if you can't trust others to treat you fairly when deserved, can you expect them to trust you?

- I could tell you were pschoonveld, I'm just waiting for you to reveal that you're merlyn - that is to say that many others here also have a sense of humour!

Finally, here is my advice for what it is worth (remembering that you didn't pay for it ;-): Pick a single ID and stick with it. You seem to have figured out how to post without inflaming people, just try to remember that.

Contribute value as you are able (and I know you are able), and you will be justly rewarded. (man does that sound pompus!)

---

---

• Are you posting in the right place? Check out Where do I post X? to know for sure.
• Posts may use any of the Perl Monks Approved HTML tags. Currently these include the following:

  <code> <a> <b> <big> <blockquote> <br /> <dd> <dl> <dt> <em> <font> <h1> <h2> <h3> <h4> <h5> <h6> <hr /> <i> <li> <nbsp> <ol> <p> <small> <strike> <strong> <sub> <sup> <table> <td> <th> <tr> <tt> <u> <ul>

• Snippets of code should be wrapped in <code> tags not <pre> tags. In fact, <pre> tags should generally be avoided. If they must be used, extreme care should be taken to ensure that their contents do not have long lines (<70 chars), in order to prevent horizontal scrolling (and possible janitor intervention).
• Want more info? How to link or How to display code and escape characters are good places to start.