<h3>Upvoting</h3>
<p><strong>When  you answer a question,</strong> or think you could answer it if you had the time, that's strong <em>prima facie</em> evidence the question is good enough to be upvoted. Please do it.</p>
<p><strong>When you do not feel comfortable answering a question</strong> but feel that you at least could understand it and the O.P. has taken the care to make it as short, clear, and focused as possible while providing any necessary details, then it deserves your positive vote.</p>
<p><strong>Some questions are badly put but their intent is clear and they are <em>interesting</em>:</strong> they may suggest some novel way of looking at a concept, for example. I upvote those.</p>
<p><strong>Factor in possible difficulties with English:</strong> when a  question comes through sufficiently clearly but the English is stilted, look beyond that and consider upvoting it (and editing it for grammar and usage if you have a few minutes to spare).</p>
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<h3>Not voting</h3>
<p><strong>When a question needs clarification</strong> or other improvement, please leave a comment to guide the O.P. and do <em>not</em> vote the question up: save your vote as a reward for the improvement.</p>
<p><strong>Because most of us look primarily at questions we think we can answer or about subjects we may be interested in, the fact that you have looked at it suggests you should either upvote it or write a comment suggesting an improvement.</strong></p>
<p>If, due to lack of knowledge of the situation or terminology, you feel you cannot tell whether the question has been clearly formulated, then don't vote.  You probably won't be spending much time with such questions anyway.</p>
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<h3>Downvoting</h3>
<p>Because <strong>downvotes</strong> can discourage people, especially newcomers, save the (rare) question downvotes for just that: they go to people who have been shown what needs improvement and how to improve it but (after a suitable period of time) have not made the necessary changes. In fact, <em>those are the questions you should vote to close,</em> so <strong>save your downvotes for people who violate site norms</strong> (become belligerent, attack people, repeat their own questions, and so on).</p>
