Her Portland Or/set in the future book I'm thinking of (the title of which is entirely escaping me.. arg) = not so great as a suggestion for hippy/great/novel.
Le Guin writes good fiction though, and her personal character as an author, IMO, outshines her fictional characters by a full magnitude/star.

Thx for being a fan; it does me good when I've helped someone here...

I also love Geni's answers, so thanks for pointing out she's doing the whole prolific A thing too.*

but I reserve the right to immodestly bitch like the hermit I am -and neither embrace nor shut up... just yet, anyway - (especially when the Gnomemaster all but hints that the change/tweak I'm hoping for is possible, just not reasoned well enough).

I'm sorry it bugs me, but it does. Personally and as a feature of our community in general.
Parable/Example: Flashback to Rev in high school. Did the Rev have a genius IQ? If you guess yes, you'd be right. Did the Rev have 'special' classes because of it (and did I have to hide that info from the violent jerks/jocks/threatened-dumb-fawks in school?) yes(&yes). Did I pin my IQ with a big green button to the front of my bitchin' 80's vest to advertise this stat?? Hells of no.

(Besides, I would've had to have moved the other buttons and pins and like totally a swatch or two out of the way... I mean PshhhYeahhh... Right. )

*this reminds me of a stat feature I WOULD like to suggest.... Thx!

I'm in if it's Beat Poetry

Split a cab?

Gnome (and gnome handler):
I don't think of it as 'The Gnomes' (plural) because of there supposedly being several, but because the Gnome clearly has the awesomeness of VOLTRON, and it gives off the impression of both a single entity & multiple facets. Sorry if that part wasn't clear.

as far as data: the 10 downvotes on this Q alone might somewhat support the "hey look, the green bar is a downvote magnet" argument. So-so's spot-on comment that 'some people don't get shroooms who should' is another.

Ok, I'll try my best to make this discussion/request logical:

The data is this: of the last 25 or so shrooms awarded to the Rev, how many were from new Qlanders? The majority! (go look, I'll wait) These new Qlanders, I'd argue, were influenced by the green bars: "oh wow, fnarf and rev and et al have a lot of shrooms, their answers must be pretty good".
pause: I understand that may be your (royal your) POINT in including the green bar - my point is, that info was ALREADY available in the old model, where you clicked on a name or avatar, (if. you. so. chose.), and could then investigate.
-unpause:

So this newbie Qland Asker looks at the answerers and sees a certain quantifying number being actively-not-passively advertised and makes certain assumptions and then votes, ala peer pressure and Confirmation Bias (specifically; the effect known as Preference for Early Info may apply) with a tendency favoring the high-count shroom-winners.

My proof?
Pre-green bar, the newb qlanders did not lavish the highshroomearners any particular statistical advantage. That has shifted now post-greenbar, albeit slightly. You likely have better access to those numbers than I do.
My personal proof: when I first came to Qland as a non-lurker, way back in 2009 (gasp) I thought Fnarf, Elenchos, Kip, et al must be the FAWKING SHIT, because their shroom counts were so high (and a fussbudget like me naturally looked up their stats), and I myself awarded them shrooms BASED on that bias.

To borrow/tweak fnarf's terminology: the green bar is Authorised Spam: data/informational spam that we didn't ask for aka signup for. I do love the idea, but wish it were optional to avoid the above explained unnatural development of answer-preference.

As an extreme/devil's advocate argument/scare tactic:, what if The good Rev went the way of the Spock and grew a goatee and went evil? Well, more evil than usual.
And started giving crap / false / misleading answers, using my green bar influence for ill? Easily-swayed newb qlanders could potentially look at the ranking, versus the answer quality, and write off qland as rubbish. Which we all know isn't true.

This could potentially, -to some small degree,- negatively affect Qland's usefulness and fun community (much like when Yelp started selling reviews/blackmailing restaurants for money)

in short: Good answers should stand on their own merits, ...not their provider's prior good standing/popularity.

lastly, dear superGnome: I really am making this request with the beloved Qland in mind - I hope that's not completely hidden in the occasional sarcasm/critiques.

/soapbox

commence snark / downvoting / oh-poor-you commentary now.... *sigh*

Escaping thoughts by physical transport is the most irrational thing I've heard this week.

"Dear Reverend Enent,"

...and don't try to school me on religion, shitcock (especially when you only spell correctly that which you cut and paste). I went to law school AND have a phd in theology: I'm quite familiar with both logic AND where the spiritual books come from. Those that understand religion better know it's not about the books, the stories, the gods' names or any other asshattery created by ThoseWhoWouldProfitOnTheProphets.
It's about something deeper and more personal.

Accept that you just Don't Get It and move on, escaping on your little bark like Prospero, hoping somehow Milan will come under better, more just rule by MAGIC rather than by the hardwork it really requires.

hey, Mr Logic: please reconcile two things for me before you head off to your teabagger meeting...

"You have the BEST solution. Just be oblivious! Live in the moment. Live your fantasies to the fullest.
My advice: Start drinking heavily. It may help the pain."

vs.

"Sailing now as an escape "

and

"catholic church/religion is the worst thing ever / religion is the most harmful"
vs.
"because Mankind is SATAN and has no SOUL"

(You use a mythological character/creature (from religion) you claim is illogical as your analogy to prove logic and science? Practice what you don't preach, already, Paddy.)

last:
"Even if you tell others, they will not believe it. I am just another nut?"

Yes, yes you are.

I like how patty's "bottom line" was at least 5 paragraphs and several entries before the actual bottom. ;)

"You'd think that an engineer would know the difference between a bell curve and a logistic distribution as well."
= FTW

The cut & paste commenting has gotta go... as well as the virtual spamming of youtubery links.

Aw shit, who gave the tinhat corps the keys to the interwebs??

LOL
Rich content there, Patty. Rich.

Ok, it's a rant-off...
What if... now, this might blow your mind- but what if we don't keep ourselves addicted to oil? Your oil-based Rapture/Apocolypse is unnecessary, inaccurate and -what keeps it in the tin-hat fringe realm- is wildly pessimistic.
Solar, fuel cell, mag lev technologies are all ushering us into a lower- oil use era... MPG are going up. Are putting off the inevitable? Sure. But it's addiction: you quit cold turkey and you might die.

You need to cite when making broad inflammatories like "there have been no new oil fields discovered for decades"
i.e. Putting MEASURED in ALLCAPS doesn't, by use of the shiftbar alone, make it so.

Another thing: I'm offended by your thoughtless sexism. It's HUMANkind now. Men may be irrational, and women may also be, but humanity is optimistic still.
You don't want this future? JeezuzFawkAllChrist, this isn't the future you nit, it's the present. Oh, look, IT'S THE PRESENT AGAIN. And now? The present! No matter how old you are, you've got your whole life ahead of you - so live in the Now, already.
So what, did you get on your boat, hoping problems would go away and a benevolent alien race would make everything right? Wow. Uhm, newsflash: Superman is fiction. And YOU have the brass ones to try and claim religion is a false hope / the worst thing ever / kept us in the dark? Living in fantasies? And,you want humanity to be subjected to an airbourne STERILIZING VIRUS against their will? You'd make yourself into a whole other kind of 'pope' taking freewill from people like that. - Hello, Pot, it's Kettle; You're OH SO black.

Also, The pope doesn't rule the earth. Yet we still have wars. Humanity, not some abstract like religion, causes wars. HUMANITY. And, you are part of it... (not above it as some outside/floating offshore observer) so, yes, YOU share the blame. You can share the solution too, if you've got the courage.

Weigh anchor FFS rather than come here and practice your 'Seagull-Social Skill School' technique of flying over and pooping all over everything.

One last thing: we ARE exploring the stars, asshat. We've discovered whole new planets, earth-type aka M-class planets. Are we wasting resources taking a pair of human eyes into space to verbally tell us about the planets & stars? Hells no. We're smarter than that: we are letting the stars come to us and tell their stories. You should give yourself some quality time to get lost in the gallery of Hubbell telescope images.

humankind is so wonderous and beautiful! And full of innovation and promise! And beautifully decorated with the creativity and imagination -even with things as simple as tattoos!!