If we discouraged asking questions, people would stop asking them and we'd have no reason to be here.
Oh, come on. You really think that people asking questions
are seeking XP? I think they are seeking answers.
They won't say, Gheee, my question got answered, but I only got 10 upvotes
for my question, next time, I'll ask on Usenet, or I've asked 5 questions,
I never got a useful answer, but I reached level 4 because of my questions.
I'll keep coming back to this useful forum.
As for your list of points, it may be the consensus that that's
the way people should upvote, but it isn't my perception at
all. I get the impression that frontpaged questions get lots
of xp, and questions about popular topics, like web questions.
Regardless whether something is a FAQ, asked before, or whether
they put in any effort.
Abigail