Quick Questions, Short Answers - No Debate

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I agree that the cheers/jeers can be entertaining, and I confess I feel gratified when a substantial number of people award cheers to one of my posts. Conversely, I'm a bit annoyed when I observe some members jeering posts merely because they fundamentally disagree with the jeered members' beliefs, rather than because the post is badly reasoned, poorly argued, off-topic or offensive.Given the existence of a rating system, I'd like it to reflect the real world more closely: the weight we give to someone's applause when they applaud everything is slight; the credence we lend to the sourpuss who boos every note is close to nil.So I'd like the impact of a member's jeer or cheer to reflect their overall behavior. If the King of Jeers (you know who you are ) jeers my post, the impact of that jeer should reflect the fact that the King jeers hundreds of posts per month.Likewise, a cheer from the partisan who cheers my post because he cheers everything from his camp, however trivial or offensive, shouldn't give me much of a bump compared to the more judicious member who awards cheers as though nominating a POTM.In the real world, the social value of our judgments reflects how and how often we dispense them. A better rating system would do that, too. Perhaps the algorithm that calculates a rating based on a defined period of time could also calculate the value of a cheer or jeer based on how many the rater has already clicked during the same period.It would also be entertaining to view each member's cheer/jeer count, perhaps in the public section of the profile.

Thank you, sir.

I'd guess they're coming up from old root systems. We see the same thing in our woodlot in the Adirondacks with beech trees: beech bark disease affects nearly all the older trees, but the root systems are so well established that they re-sprout, and there is some delay before the beetle and pathogen combo do their work, or at least until it shows. Beech groves spread via their root systems as well as by seed. We see lots of 8-10"diameter beech trees without any sign of the disease.Some foresters recommend cutting all beech in affected forests, killing off the regrowth with herbicides, and planting other species. They also recommend watching for the small percentage of beech trees that enjoy natural resistance, allowing them to stand and reseed the forest. I'd need tankcars of herbicide to do our acreage, even were I willing, so I'm content for now to cut diseased beech for firewood and plan to do the same to the coppiced regrowth. I have noticed some larger trees that have remained free of the bark cankers. The few remaining old giant beeches succumbed to a combination of disease and storms in recent years.Of course, the emerald ash borer is coming for my ash trees, and the woolly adelgid for my hemlocks.A resistant strain of American elm is now available; potentially resistant American chestnuts are being grown now. I've thinking about planting both. I saw a mature (treated) American elm some years ago, and it was majestic.