Personally I don't like this. My opinion is that it encourages you to care too much about rep and xp rather than the contents of the node. Either you like the contents or you don't. If you like them then ++, if not then either don't vote, vote a -- (if you really don't like it), post a reply, msg the author or any combination. Or you could just ignore it.

Consider the following. You read a thread and you liked it, mostly. There were some good points, some bad but the overall thread encouraged you to learn something. So you would vote various nodes in that thread with a ++. Then you read another and someone says something you really don't like. Theres a bit of a flame war so you msg one or two people and -- a few nodes.

Under what situation are you going to say to yourself, I like that node but I don't think the author deserves a ++ from me. I just want to see what they have and not reward the author for the thought they have provided. I just want to see what other people think and not express my own opinion.

I can't see it myself :).

Update Just to say that I gave you a ++, even though I disagree with you. I think that reinforces my point.