Every time you post a node that people read, people formulate an opinion about your node in their minds as they read it. Some of those opinions may be positive and some may be negative. Votes are an opportunity to express how we feel about a node. I rarely see a node with a deep negative reputation for which there aren't at least one or more responses also expressing verbal criticism. And nodes with shallow negatives, well, who cares about that? Not every node posted is going to sit well with the majority.

When I have a node that's received a negative reputation, I'm usually able to go back, re-read what I posted, read the comments the node has received, and understand why it got downvoted. For the record, I don't feel that I've ever been downvoted for asking questions.... at least not enough for one of my questions to receive a negative rep.

The question of why nodes get downvoted comes up a lot. Sometimes the answer is more inflamatory than the --. Sometimes it's just someone being careless (that can often account for a brief -1 rep). And other times, there will be criticisms posted in followup to the node. And then there's always the annoyance factor: the negative rep that gets delt to someone who asks a question and follows it up with a question that makes it obvious he didn't listen to the previous answers.

At any rate, don't worry about shallow negatives. Once and awhile you get a node that just attracts a few --'s. Votes don't equate to money, skill-level, or anything other than just the sum of all of the fleeting opinions of people who read what you write.