Up or down voting a post anonymously doesn't affect the person's rep points. All it does is show whether or not you liked the post, nothing more. That is not the same as the question you posed in the poll.

of course it would be easier if someone flags your post as 'not relevant or wrong', that they should state why, so the actual poster might explain himself better, or understand where he went wrong.
on the other hand, there are tons of posts 'out there' with as only contents:
'Gimme the codezzz'. I assume with posts of this genre, just saying it's a bad post says it all, why force those who recognize this post as being negative (yes, I was thinking of another word first :P ) to point out the obvious?

If you say a post is good or bad, you always have to why.
The poster of the post can probably find ways to improve himself with the comments given.

If you say a post is good or bad, you always have to why.

Voting is completely anonymous outside of a direct database query, which only Dani presently has access to perform. With the current vBulletin back-end, reputation is not anonymous, but a comment isn't required. As best practice I'd recommend always including a comment, but there's no enforcementright now.

In the upcoming new back-end, votes and reputation are more directly related. Reputation is a specialized kind of vote that requires a comment and affects reputation points. However, votes without reputation will continue to be anonymous outside of a direct database query.

I've found the rep/voting system a little confusing myself. I don't particularly like the anonymous voting, but sometimes I just feel like saying 'ditto'. In which case I'll upvote. Do I need to explain myself ad nauseum? Perhaps not.
Also, giving an thread opener a -1 is useful if it's unclear. Giving somebody a fully fledged neg rep seems a bit harsh at times.

WRT having to give a reason, I think I'd just put '...' if I couldn't be bothered.

I dislike giving and getting anonymous rep. One should back up one's opinion. Also if you're repping someone, they can't really "improve" whatever it is you want them to improve if they don't know the reasoning behind the criticism. That said, sometimes (OK, often-times) I'll down-vote or upvote someone anonymously in a flame war type environment if I think someone involved is simply a troll or a rabble-rouser and is spiteful and will just go around down-voting my posts randomly. I generally try to avoid that, though since I like a level playing field and it isn't level if one person knows who the other person is, but not vice-versa. There's no way to justify yourself against an anonymous downvote. Someone had the audacity to down-vote me anonymously for expressing the obvious truism that football is superior to rugby. Four people in that thread at least had the courage to sign their names to the prepostorous notion that rugby is better. I didn't downvote them. I just feel sorry for them. :). The point is that someone was either mad at me for thinking football was the best sport ever invented or for hijacking ardav's thread. Since they didn't tell me which it was, I have no idea.

If it was up to me, I'd do away with anonymous voting, but since it's allowed, I'll use it.

If I downvote someone I will almost always give a reason and hit the negative rep as a result. Personally I don't find much use for the downvote only button, as if I'm that minded to actually click the button then I'm also minded enough to say why. If you see what I mean.

I do down votes only (doesn't affect his/her rep) so that I don't destroy the member's overall rep with just my one vote. The post has to be pretty darned awful before I'll leave a down vote with comment and affect rep.

I do down votes only (doesn't affect his/her rep) so that I don't destroy the member's overall rep with just my one vote. The post has to be pretty darned awful before I'll leave a down vote with comment and affect rep.

@ frogboy
AD has explained better than I could. Neg rep is a pretty heavy tool (I think I can affect somebody by -3), which isn't as much as it used to be, but still pretty horrible for a noob starting with 10. AFAIK, if I give a reason, I cause a decrease in the user's rep. I don't usually want to do that unless the guy/gal really deserves it.

I'm generally only downvoting and neg repping spammers so no ham done :)

I'm generally only downvoting and neg repping spammers so no ham done :)

Why? You (or another mod) is going to delete the post anyway, so why bother?

I'm generally only downvoting and neg repping spammers so no ham done :)

Mmmmm - ham,

Honest response - I don't affect anyone's rep by much but I always make a comment if I up or down vote.

Why? You (or another mod) is going to delete the post anyway, so why bother?

The comment will stay in the reputation page of the profile as a bitter reminder of the sin the spammer committed