Well, it seems to me that questions used to be labeled such that you awarded points to "helpful" questions and answers and penalized for "unhelpful". Now, you simply "rate" a question or answer, so I guess what you propose as common practice is appropriate.

No I don't. The purpose of the points system was to show if a question or answer was helpful or not helpful. Opposite points of view can be equally helpful in reaching a conclusion. Some AB users also only award points to those who have awarded points to them, which also avoids the distinction of helpful/not helpful.

My recollection is that the purpose of the points system was to help stop the widespread and problematic practice of new users signing up and going on downrating sprees. Downrating just to downrate, more or less. Prior to Nov 15, 2006, AB used a no-points ratings system. Users rated answers as "useful", "somewhat useful" or "not useful", and later, "helpful" or "not helpful". That meant a newbie's rating and a senior Answerbagger's rating had an equal impact on an answer's quality percentage. IOW, if an answer got one 100% rating (useful), and one 50% (not useful) rating, that answer's quality percentage was 75%. Needless to say, people who joined for a day and ran around, frivolously downrating answers caused trouble and hard feelings. Questions were un-ratable. AB then introduced the points system. Troublesome newbies could no longer wreak havoc with people's quality percentages, at least not to the extent they had been able to in AB 1.0 and 2.0. The longer a user stayed, the more points he accrued and in turn, could award and take away - the idea being that senior users are more responsible. That was the original purpose of the points system.

I believe that the points system is simply a way to make this website more addicting. It is instant gratification, which has been shown to be highly pleasurable. Q & A websites with points systems or thumbs systems are very popular. Same thing with the level system. If AB did not have the points and level system, many would leave the website.

My understanding is that many of the questions here are asking for opinions. There CANNOT be a right or wrong answer on an opinion. Therefore, I believe it is a complete abuse of the downrate function to use it to express disagreement. If you disagree with me, I would prefer to know why and have some information to help me understand your point of view. This is accomplished by leaving a comment. A downrate does nothing to help anyone learn anything.

No I do not believe it is right to rate questions that agree with your point of view only.

Awarding points, hopefully, should make the most useful answers rise to the top so they are right there under the questions. But so many of the questions here are opinion or 'what do you prefer?" "How old were you__?" just kind of personal info questions. So what if some people give more points to those answers they like, that are closer to what they said. It's just agreeing with them. If it was the case that we couldn't do that, then what? We'd just give the same points to everyone? How would there be some sort of separation between the answers? And I often give points in those kind of questions as to which one I found funniest, even if it was completely different form mine. What does it matter on a "What is that blue thin to your left?" type question?