[washingtonismoney]

I have broken my self-imposed embargo and utilized the rating feature.
I'm not a big fan of it.  Positive votes are fine. The negative votes are my main peeve.  In general, I think one should express in a post exactly why a person they disagree with is wrong.  Or agree to disagree.  I think some posts are downrated because they express issue viewpoints people dislike.  My contrarian view is that the only time negative or "disrespect votes"  should be used is when the poster is being a dick.  That is worth a down vote.  I didn't see any real dickishness in this thread, and so used some positive respect votes to take the sting out of some respect down-ratings.

This is pretty much my view of the rating function, and I pretty often balance out the scales in the manner you describe.

[washingtonismoney]

I have broken my self-imposed embargo and utilized the rating feature.
I'm not a big fan of it.  Positive votes are fine. The negative votes are my main peeve.  In general, I think one should express in a post exactly why a person they disagree with is wrong.  Or agree to disagree.  I think some posts are downrated because they express issue viewpoints people dislike.  My contrarian view is that the only time negative or "disrespect votes"  should be used is when the poster is being a dick.  That is worth a down vote.  I didn't see any real dickishness in this thread, and so used some positive respect votes to take the sting out of some respect down-ratings.

This is pretty much my view of the rating function, and I pretty often balance out the scales in the manner you describe.