I expect many Diehards are SNL fans.  Do you remember John Lovitz’s impression of playwright Harvey Fierstein? Lovitz pretended that Fierstein was hosting a talk show from his bedroom, making advances towards male guests, and being rebuffed.  He would look in the camera and yell, “I just want to be loved!  Is that so wrong!?”

Well, that’s kind of how M*’s rating system makes me feel.  My posts are now being regularly voted down by the hardcore Bogleheads.  They are probably hatching some fiendish plan to downgrade all my posts, which will later be discussed in detail at Diehards VII at an Econo Lodge somewhere.  It hurts my feelings.  I am going to cry.  I may need psychotherapy.

The rating system in only a day old, and already my posts are being downgraded.  Look at this thread.  It’s a post about Selected Value, which is a favorite fund of mine.  I made a casual comment about the fund which took about a minute to write.  Honestly, I was just trying to write anything so that we can get over 20 posts a day, just to help M* Darrin at bonus time when Mansueto calls him in and asks him, “What the hell did I spend all that money on the forum upgrade for?”  So I wrote a James Joyce stream-of-consciousness ramble on Select Value.

It’s not my best post, but right now, my post has a rating on negative 3, and everybody else has a positive rating.  OK.  It ain't a weekly lampoon post, but is it really that friggin’ bad?  Sudhi has posts with a positive 1 for crying out loud.  A negative 3?  I don’t think so.  Maybe it’s a 0 or a negative 1.  For crying out loud, statsguy wrote almost the same thing as me, and he has a positive 3.  I think it’s the work of “A & A" ... and at least two other Bogleheads since I voted for myself.

I just want to make it in to the column on the left of the “highest rated users.”  I’ll print it for my kids and grandkids to show them that I was very popular at one point.  In the meantime, I’ll have to figure out who the hell “SmartSometimes” is, and what makes him so darn popular.