I've refrained from posting till now. (I've also refrained and will continue refrain from voting on the OP.)

Three things to say:

• One, perhaps my main, reason for down-voting, is when I wish to track the community response to some post on a subject of interest to me, but which I cannot bring myself to up-vote.

  I justify this action on the following basis. I only have one vote per post. If my vote is out of kilter with the majority of the monastery, it will disappear in the flood of upvotes. If my vote is in accord with the majority, then it is only one more.

• I rarely, (maybe never, but I cannot guarantee I never have), down-vote people for disagreeing with me.

  Indeed, I often up-vote good counter argument if it is well made. Even when I disagree with it.

• I don't usually down-vote obvious -- to me -- errors. None of us know everything; we are all capable of misunderstanding or misreading things; we all make mistakes.

  In these cases I prefer to just post a correction.

  But I reserve special ire for those that repeatedly post the same misinformation, despite having previously be taken to task for it and corrected.

So, no. Down-voting is an integral and important part of this place and should stay.

As for AnonyMonk, whilst many of the most annoying posts come from that source; so also do many of the most insightful answers. I'll put up with the bad in order to retain and learn from the good.