Its actually like 8 ups at 4 downs at this point. Don't know what that tells us.

Think Han and Leia, Harry and Sally, Veronica Mars and Logan Echolls, Indiana Jones and that annoying actress from Temple of Doom. I could go on.

I'll stop now, though :-)

Fair point, and I appreciate your input -- I'm often ignorant of the differences between how I would take remarks vs. how other people would.

But with respect to my use of "your failures", that was just to follow the form of Alicorn's question, not because I like making others feel like failures. Here's the relevant part:

Let me clarify: you think I'm immature, almost constantly in error, you won't explain my failures in enough detail for me to make use of the information even when I ask... [bold added -- SB]

Of course liking a person is separate from evaluation of their comments -- at least I hope people here act that way! What I dispute is this insinuation that my treatment of you is evidence of having built up some personal or emotional "dislike" of you, as opposed to a clear-headed reaction to the merit of your posts.

I also strongly dispute your suggestion of symmetry: I do not use the voting system as a tool to "get back" at you during disputes, while the evidence suggests that you do start modding me down even when your objectivity has clearly been compromised and therefore when your voting is disinformative to others.

Yes, yes, there's no rule against modding down someone you just got into a flamewar with or who offended your honor and I'm a masochist for employing such restraint, blah blah blah. Nevertheless, I am clearly treating you better than you treat me, so if anything, you should be appreciative of my actions and not characterize them as some kind of mistreatment.