We (
the common noders) have
no control over who will be on E2, and what
opinions they bring with them. We have no way (other than by
carefully worded suggestions) to influence the way they will spend the votes and cools they earn,
by hook or by crook.
Presumably, we are writing nodes we feel deserve to be voted up. If one of yours is voted down, and you carefully and exhaustively review the node and still feel the judgement is unfair, There's nothing you can do about it but feel superior. Why superior? Because you have better taste, better sense, better noder skills than whomever that schmuck was. Ok, well, the other option is to complain. And if you complain, you lose all right to feel superior. That's right, kids. You heard it here first.
We have almost no power over how people will vote, and the power that we do hold is in our eloquence and erudition as played out in our nodes, not our whinging prowess. I can say from experience that people who constantly whine in the Chatterbox make my downvote finger itch. Not that i would, understand, but i could... We're here to build a database, not gather XP. If we can't influence the voters, we shouldn't allow them to excite our passions.
If you're not having fun, you're not noding right. Node what you want to node, not what you think people want you to node. So please: be unmoved by cools or votes. Be moved by the people who pour themselves into E2 daily. I mean, after all, it's not as if you're going to get a framed certificate and a million dollars when you reach the next level. Just a new title. And maybe a spaceship.
i would like to give co-writing credit to yossarian, who was there for me, man,
and to Marcus Aurelius, who did it first and better.