Does anyone have heuristics for when it's worthwhile to upvote, or downvote, a post? I've had an account on Less Wrong for a while now, but it's only recently that I've started using it on more than a weekly basis, so I suspect I'll be engaging with this online community more. So, I'm wondering what is the up-and-up on, i.e., courteous method of, upvoting/downvoting. I'm aware that this might be a controversial issue, so let's not use this thread for debates. I'm only looking for useful, or appropriate, heuristics for (understanding) voting I might have missed. For the record, as of this comment, I've never downvoted anyone.

This is what I've surmised so far:

• Users downvote posts or comments which are about signaling value of their particular monkey tribe. This often seems to be newcomers, or people who don't interact with the Less Wrong community very communally, bragging about who they identify their in-group as. They state things like "I've finally found a community committed to reason. Incidentally, this ideology is totally reasonable, so you should get on board with it. Trust me, I've read lots of stuff about it, so it checks out. It is not unlike [my ideological opponents], who are unreasonable/stupid/crazy/whatever. I hope you guys aren't like [my ideological opponents], because then you're unreasonable, too".

• Users who, in one way or another, are ignorant of topics the Less Wrong community believes they've already reached a consensus conclusion on in a straightforward, slam-dunk manner, receive downvotes. These types of posts which seem to have an agenda which the Less Wrong community would also find disagreeable seem to be less well-received. Ignorant posts where the submitter seems to be genuinely trying to start, or add to, a conversation in good spirit still get downvoted, but also tend to have comment which attempt to helpfully correct the submitter.

• Posts, or comments, which are seen as trolling are downvoted. Posts, or comments, which take a meta-contrarian/intellectual-hipster stance, or go against the grain of the majority/plurality opinion(s) on Less Wrong will be volatile, but tend to get more downvotes. A recent post on life-extension and death is an example. An exception to this tendency is if the post, or comment, in question is executed very well.

• How Less Wrong as a community which polices itself by dishing out downvotes, it works efficiently a majority of the time. By the time I get to wreckage of a flame war to catch the juicy details, there isn't much point to myself as an individual actor dishing out further downvotes.

• I upvote a comment on at least one of two bases. The first basis is if I believe the comment provides information which answers a question, or clarifies a problem I have. Partial answers and solutions also work as well. This is a proxy for my interlocutor increasing the epistemic quality of the conversation. The second basis is if I believe the comment of my interlocutor provides information which is instrumentally valuable. This is a proxy for instrumental rationality. I also do this for comments in conversations I'm not a part of. If I perceived an inverse of either of the two cases I've presented occurring, I would consider that grounds for downvoting the comment in question.

• I'm not confident with how to proceed in upvoting posts that already have lots of karma. By the time a post of decent quality already has several upvotes by the time I read it, I tend not to upvote it, so as not to give it undue importance. If I believe a post, or comment, is exceptionally well-written, or -executed, I might upvote it regardless of however many votes it has now to increase its visibility.

• I'm sometimes worried about my votes being biased in the sense that they go to posts, or comments, which increase the visibility of things I only value personally, rather than being reflective of how much a given post, or comment, increases, or decreases, the quality of the discourse on Less Wrong. I'm especially worried these biases in my voting patterns might be, or could become, unconscious.

So, have I missed anything? Additionally, what are the reasons for, or against, keeping my own record of liked/upvoted, and disliked/downvoted, posts, and comments, hidden?