<p><strong>TL;DR</strong></p>

<p><a href="https://stats.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/314">Vote early and often.</a>  Deploy your daily votes <a href="https://stats.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/1819">constructively</a> to help people use our site effectively and well.</p>

<hr>

<p>I'm sure people have different systems for reading posts and voting on them. Please bear in mind the <em>constructive</em> role played by voting, which I think is the concern being expressed here:</p>

<ul>
<li><p><strong>Upvotes, when they are merited,</strong> encourage people to participate and reward good contributions.</p></li>
<li><p><strong>Upvotes that are not merited</strong> can be confusing and potentially elevate poor posts to undue prominence.  We have to trust that this occurs relatively little and will usually be corrected by the community.</p></li>
<li><p><strong>Downvotes are inherently negative.</strong>  They create bad feelings.  Use them when they can have the <em>constructive</em> effect of encouraging a poster to improve a particular post.  This implies that most downvotes are wasted if they are not accompanied by an effective, actionable comment.  (There are exceptions: some posts are so obviously poor that little needs to be said.)</p></li>
<li><p><strong>Downvotes that are unmerited are even more negative and provocative.</strong>  They can reflect badly on the downvoter, too.  For this reason, it's wise to hesitate before applying any downvote--to make sure you have a good reason for it and are not just reacting emotionally--and then to pause again after applying it, to reflect on what you just did.  You have a few minutes to change your mind.</p></li>
</ul>

<p>Note, too, that upvotes are the driver of our "reputation economy": virtually all reputation arises from the five or ten points each upvote creates in the system.  The more votes you supply, the more reputation there will be to go around, the more things people will be able to do on the site, and the happier they will feel in continuing their participation.</p>

<p>Please: before you leave any page you have been reading, get in the habit of pausing for a second and asking whether you have voted yet.  You will usually be glad you did vote.  If you wait and tell yourself you will come back, maybe you will--but likely you won't.  Use every opportunity to make a positive impact on the site.</p>
