Off-thread: I recently up voted a comment with -7 votes, because I thought it was worth reading even though probably wrong.

I think another advantage a +x/-y display would be that sympathy votes or outcome skewing would be harder. If I see a post that is rated -7 and disagree with its status, should I vote the comment up? What if the post was -1? Would that change my vote? I think +5/-12 is harder to sympathize with than -7.

I have a strong opinion that votes should be independent of each other.