You're right in stating that this might be an old subject. It seems to come up in one form or another about once a week (most recent discussions of downvoting were this and this), although usually the discussion is about downvoting the individual rather than the post--something I (and many others, I think) find wrong--rather than the suggestion that posts not be voted down.

It depends what you mean by 'just trying to help another monk'. Someone might be 'just trying to help' but post something which is wrong or dangerous. Good intentions do not ensure good content, and what is being voted on is the quality of the post, not the intentions of the poster.

As far as downvoting opinions is concerned, I would say that the current site design encourages that. Take a look at voting guidelines and you'll see that a reason to vote down a meditation is 'if you strongly disagree with the idea'. For discussions it says 'if it would make the site less enjoyable'. Voting allows people to indicate approval or disapproval for the idea. The alternative would be a mass of 'me too' (or anti-me-too) posts as people jostled to make their opinions heard to keep vroom from implementing something or encouraging him to do something.

But those are just guidelines. If you personally feel that you should only vote down things which are screwed up, by all means do so. I imagine everyone would write those guidelines differently. Mine, for instance, would include something about improperly formatted posts made by anyone over level 1, which is one of my pet peeves.

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