My $1/50 :

I cast downvotes for the following reasons:

• If a question is asked without any effort put towards trying to find the answer
• If a question is posted with a un-informative node name (e.g. "HELP! PLEASE!")
• If an answer is given that doesn't work
• If an answer is not given, just criticism or abuse
• If someone is a snotty bastard for no apparent reason & the content value doesn't outweigh how annoying they are
• If an entire node is written in 37337 5cr1p7
• If a node is a 'fluff node' intended just to garnish that one extra vote you needed to get to n XP
• If the node is a joke node & isn't funny (but I haven't done this yet so...)

Personality voting is counter-productive towards the value of the perlmonks site in general. It's like when the Communists came to power in China & Mao started burning all of the works of Confucious. You're trashing a RESOURCE. For the most part the people here are informative & try to be helpful. Don't give them crap unless they deserve it and then only on the point where they deserve it.

I for one, downvoted merlyn's posting about who was on-line when he was personality-downvoted. Not because I don't agree that there's a problem, but the CB is the right place to express that & a node that lists suspects is a waste of a node. But that's the ONLY time I've EVER had reason to downvote Merlyn-sama. I've probably upvoted him more than anyone else, just from the sheer volume of good postings of his that I have read & learned from.

It does however bug me to see Monks like Merlyn & Tilly actually getting upset about the fluctuations in their XP. Sure it's a virtual slap in the face, but it's not like it changes your status AT ALL. Nor does it change how others percieve you on this site or otherwise. It just seems unimportant. IMHO...