This is probably a dead thread already (considering the speed that the posts came in the thread), but no one seemed to explicitly state some things that seem obvious.

It would seem that ideally the `++' and `--' voting for the PM nodes is so well thought out and implemented that it needs little improvement (if any). Like i said, ideally:

Ideally people vote `++' for nodes that they think should show up more often. The higher the score, the higher the rating (people seem to like genetics). When this is working properly there is little reason to ever `--' a post. A disregarded post (0 rep) will likely make the author re-evaluate their posting methodologies. The post could be extraneous (like this one probably) or poorly worded. Who knows. People just passed it over.

On the other hand, giving a post enough `--'s so that it's on the bad nodes list forewarns others (who check the worst nodes page) what not to do in a post. This saves would-be bad posters from doing something stupid; in theory.

Like stated, this is an ideal. What seems a good post to some might seem bad to others. Usually i vote `++' on a post that either:
1) taught me something
2) made me think
3) made me laugh
These are things that i would like to see more of on PM. They are completely subjective criterion however.

This is way past long-winded already, but as to anonymous voting and 1..10, a little more.

Anonymous voting seems to be a Good Thing (tm) since it usually disallows groups of voters to form. If you trust someone's opinion and they voted `--' on a post, would you read the post first or just follow suit? With many votes to spend and many posts to go through, this could happen. There are a hundred examples and counter-examples, but it seems that not having name recognition for a vote allows a freer voting system.

The 1..10 idea was already hit up. Laziness abounds in programmers and 1,2,9,10 would probably end up being the most common votes from not wanting to invent a scale of where a particular post would end up in relation to other posts.

These are just my thoughts, for the little they're worth. 2 cents anyone?

jynx

ps(off topic) thank god for previewing posts, i tend to make an inordinately large amount of typographical errors when writing a post (originally)...