Just my 0.33Euro thought ;-)

I globally aggree with your point of view, most the reasons you give to downvote seem legit to me :

• If a question is asked without any effort put towards trying to find the answer
• If an answer is given that doesn't work
• If an answer is not given, just criticism or abuse
• If someone is a snotty bastard for no apparent reason & the content value doesn't outweigh how annoying they are

I understand that some may bother you (more than it bothers me) and leads you to downvote (but I won't downvote for this):

• If an entire node is written in 37337 5cr1p7
• If a question is posted with a un-informative node name (e.g. "HELP! PLEASE!")

I understand that It may 'scramble' the info and be considered has something to be fighted (although I prefer /msg to educate in this case)

But some doesn't seem so legit IMHO :

• If the node is a joke node & isn't funny (but I haven't done this yet so...)
• If a node is a 'fluff node' intended just to
• that one extra vote you needed to get to n XP garnish

They are way too subjectives !
How will you be sure that you didn't miss a joke
(I did once and downvoted tilly !!)
Are you sure you have all elements to find if a post is funny ?
(where you on the CB just before davorg made is pony AM post ?)
How can you be sure that someone is posting to gain XP and not only to be kind or add something (an info/nuance that again you may miss...)

Don't get me wrong !
I'm not saying that what you do is bad,
I'm just defending the Idea that if there's any chance that a post may be legit, we must not downvote it.
It MAY seems a way (not funny/XP whoring) and not be just like it seems...
There's enough "good" reason to downvote why not to stick with those ones ?

As a last word, a downvote is only useful if you explain why you donwvote (hint use /msg ;-)
Be brave enough to do it, I wasn't always but I try.
Try it too, and you'll see that you'll soon focus on ++ then...

"Only Bad Coders Code Badly In Perl" (OBC2BIP)