Everything's biggest problem is that it requires writeups to gain level. Also 2XP per writeup, but this is virtually trivial. This encourages people to write crap, since you gain XP just for noding. Perl Monks avoids this, and will hopefully continue to do so.

E2 (and PM) has reputation without qualification. I mean that you give it the same points for being funny or useful. Slashdot definatly got it right by giving meaning to the rep (Funny, Insightful, Troll) and we would do well to copy that. I'd like to be able to see the scores separatly (unlike /.), so a post could have a Funny-5 and a Useful-10 or something.

Getting to vote more than once on a node. I think we should be able to give a node as many points as we have levels. So, being level 2, I could vote something +2 points. This has the advantage that a REALLY USEFUL node would fly up as people tried to exhaust all their votes for the day. I imagine this will be difficult at around level 4 or so. This also allows our Saints to really bless something without actually blessing it, or whatever powers they might have here. People would be encouraged to post real quality to get people to spend more of their precious votes on their node.

This is good even for non-karma-whores. It's just nice to be appreciated. Writing a good node (sorry, I'm in E2 mode) feels good, and having it appreciated is even better. I don't know if this would solve the problem of people spending more votes for funny things or not, but if we separated Funny and Useful (and however many other names) then it would be better. OK, I'll add more as I think of it.

Disclaimer: I'm writing this ramble here, like you did write it here, because so far I've found PM to be far less hostile than E2. In E2 I'm these days afraid to post a writeup.

Everybody says it's subjectivity of voting that's the problem. But like some (such as you) say, the real problem is trinary -1/0/+1 voting system. Especially problematic so here in PM, where almost anything is worthy.

++ gives XP to writer. -- takes it away. +=0 does nothing. XP is something to strive for. Conclusion: -- what you don't think should have been posted, and ++ what you think makes world somehow better place for having it. Seemingly simple rule, yet, when every script makes world better place, result will be that you ++ every script. Problems: if people do, then rep reflects exposure instead of quality. This is often the case. Other way of dealing with it: people turn the absolute "+ for 'world is better for this post', - for 'world is worse for this post'" rule into sliding scale where you may hit '-' for post that were worthy, simply because they were not worthy enough. Very common, go ask any E2er who downvotes lyrics and you'll hear "they weren't properly formatted". I don't know if this happens here in PM, but I can imagine hitting '--' on good script simply because it did something in nasty way.

The essence of this auto-scaling is that the +/- thresholds will be shifted until the number of +/0/- are in fair balance. Other effect of this is that different areas will get different scales. If you tell RL stories, the scale will shift to measure the amusement level of story, again hitting '-' on story that was funny, just not funny enough.

And this all is ...
  ... well, or would be, if it just didn't forget something: author, who has no clue why you -voted, and will quit E2 (like you did), because his good nodes got -voted.

Conclusion: Factual nodes get "unjust" -votes because the threshold for '-' is lower, because the "hard" rule for factual nodes would result in everything being +'d. This is caused by trinary (is that proper word? never heard, but sounds logical) voting system.

P.S. This ramble became too E2-oriented but it easily applies to PM. Just s/factual node/script/g; (scripts in E2 don't apply, they get almost solely +votes, apparently because E2 population is so awestruck by the most meager displays of code that '+' is a reflex)

  -Kaatunut