What's with all this voting and number-crunching? Why encourage a popularity contest? Why promote such concern for human respect?
I couldn't agree more. The idea of a Catholic caring about what others think or may think about them or being concerned for his/her reputation seems pretty ridiculous to me.
Quite the contrary, I believe it makes more harm than good. It only flatters the more popular ones (which is certainly a very bad thing) and alienates the least popular ones, and incites a certain bias (even if subtle) in this regard.
Who pays attention to such popularity markers?
Each time I say with St. Peter Damian: "For I pay attention to what is said, not to by whom it is said." (And this he said when he was arguing that Early Church Father and Doctor of the Church, St Jerome had erred in his understanding of Divine Omnipotence.)