This should be discussed before, if not:
The basic idea of downvote here on meta, as I could come to know, is to express disagreement. That attaches a few doubts. Reps shouldn't be taken serious, more so at meta, but I feel a no nonsense approach would still be better.
if downvote suggests disagreement, then why is downvoter's rep stripped? Is it wrong to have an opinion? [now applicable for answers].
If downvote suggests disagreement, how do I downvote for inappropriate/duplicate/vague/nonconstructive/off topic questions/answers (which should actually get the poster lose more reps than for disagreement-downvotes in my opinion)
If downvote suggests disagreement, why is the questioner/answerer losing just 2 points while an equivalent agreement-upvote helps questioner/answerer gain more than 2 points (5 and 10 respectively)? In other words why is disagreement and agreement treated differently? I find this weird.
Does this agreement/disagreement style voting system hold water on questions that are not related to
feature request
anddiscussion
?
I'm not here to say agreement/disagreement style voting system is not the way to go, I like it here on meta which makes voting different from SO. But its not a no nonsense approach in my opinion. An option would be to give the freedom for the poster to attach a poll along with his question and the normal SO like voting system persist with UP and DOWN buttons. I wouldn't want to request for that feature considering reps on meta are just a trivial aspect. But what I would love to have is to have more symmetry in up and down votes here on meta; like:
No points stripped for merely disagreeing. But that can lead to flurry of disagreements, and I dont see a workaround sadly. But still its better to not strip reps for disagreeing.
Equal point gained/lost for the poster with upvotes/downvotes respectively. Agreement and disagreement are equal and opposite.
At least to some extent it solves. Thanks. I would first put this up in discussion