Note that votes are largely subjective, this is my cheatsheet.
I generally use "does the post help the site?" to judge upvotes and downvotes to some extent. This is based on the same thing, expanded into points. If you want. I can expand the points/add more if I think of them.
##Question
To downvote a question, downvote immediately. If there's scope for improvement, comment and downvote. You can always indownvote if its improved. Read more
###Upvote (pick one)
- It's clear and shows research effort
- The question is plain awesome (in case of fun questions, this can go either way)
- The question is useful to others
###Downvote
- It's unclear
- It's a plzsendtehcodez or similar question with no effort from the OP
- It's localized (will probably be useless to the world)
Note that I tend to upvote questions when their answers explain something pretty well. This is probably wrong, but that's just me.
Do NOT downvote just because:
- The question uses incorrect grammar (as long as it is comprehensible)
##Answer
With answers, again, downvote immediately, comment, undownvote. With newbies I tend to be more lax, I comment first and downvote if they decide not to listen. But again, that's just me.
###Upvote
Of course, in any event, the answer must answer the question. If not for the last line of this answer, it should have been downvoted. (Not that it would have been)
- The answer is clear
- The answer explains the underlying concept. On SO I've noticed many answers that give the solution, but not the "Why?". I do not downvote these, but neither do I upvote them
###Downvote
- Does not answer the question
- Makes no sense
- FGITW post with minimal answer (For that matter, any post with )
- Link-only answer
- Is wrong (in your opinion)
Do NOT downvote just `cos
- It's a competitor. Voting is for post quality, and you end up harming the system. Also, upvoting competing answers get's you something shiny.
- Again, grammar that does not affect comprehensibility too much.
##Comments
Who cares? Keep this in mind that on a post wil a large number of comments, the ones shown will be the upvoted ones. So the comments which actually improve the post quality/help the OP should be upvoted. But, we know, nobody's going to follow that-- Not enough jQuery is a sure way to get you a comment upvote. And on MSO, comment-upvote just about anything :)