I see what you are saying, but Mr. Yuk is worth a thousand words! Or, all negative number posts have their negative number shown. I don't think showing the actual number for positive votes is needed. "Oh, this one must be useless since it only has a rep of 1", "This one with 15 votes must be correct", "Hmmm.. one 10 and five 3's. The 10 has to be better" are things I believe people would think, which would not be conducive to them learning. How?

Yup, people will think different things. Let them. Frankly, _I'd_ think a 10 is better than a 2, unless the 2 was too new to have gotten votes.

And, more importantly, when a new user comes and sees a +15, s/he may ignore the +2's which could be answers of better caliber.

If they are answers of better caliber, the rest of us Monks haven't done our job. What is the voting system for, after all?

What hoops? Putting a little icon next to a post title?

Coming up with a sliding scale for the icons that adjusts for vote inflation over time (a post made now will tend to have a larger absolute value than a post in March). Basically you're going to a lot of effort to communicate the rep without communicating it. Simplicity.

Why would we want a 'not vote' option? I would never use it, it would be a waste of a vote (especially for those in lower levels). Because it allows you to see the rep, but not allow the rep to influence your voting. Personally I'd use it a lot. There was a question about the XML modules a few days ago, with some answers saying somewhat contradictory things. I didn't vote, because I couldn't say which was right, but it would have been interesting/helpful to future learning if I had known which vote was ranked higher by my fellow Monks. Eventually I intend to play with the XML modules, and having a better idea of what is recommended gets me started.

As for waste of a vote, that's arguable. Perhaps it doesn't count against your vote totals. But this can be argued out if/when the system is adopted.

The main problem with your "visual cue" is that it works against what you (and others) so vigorously argued: That allowing the voter to know the rep would influence the vote (Personally I disagree, but I've conceded the point because of the large number of Monks saying so).

So if we say that

1. We shouldn't allow the rep to be known before a vote is cast
2. There are times when you (or at least me, and presumably others) would like to know the rep, but don't have the knowledge to vote ++ or --

A logical conclusion is that you CAN learn the rep, but shouldn't be able to vote.