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

Consider this point:   why do we have PerlMonks, anyway?   Is it because we like to hear ourselves talk?   Is it because we have a “beef” with a colleague somewhere in the world which, with nearly 100% certainty, we will never meet?   Is it actually because we seek to influence one another’s personal behavior?   I would argue that none of these are the case.

We participate in PerlMonks because of what we know that we can get out of it.   We know that we can Super Search and find a solution.   We also know that we can usually ask a “dumb” question.   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.

What, then, are we to glean from negative votes?   Most likely these will be “errors of procedure,” or momentary personal squabbles that took place maybe four, six years ago.   From my point-of-view in the future, these negatives mean nothing to me now.   I am interested to see the effect of positive votes about a particular posting, and to that end I really don’t want those positive votes to be countered (blurred out...) by negative ones.

Go ahead, if you want to ... damn this thread into the oblivion of -1,000 downvotes if you are that affronted by the fact that I dare to ask this question.   I dare to ask it, nonetheless, and I challenge you to answer it squarely.   A great many other sites on the Internet have made the decision to eliminate down-votes.   Should we not?