Note that votes are largely subjective, this is _my_ cheatsheet.

##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][1]


###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 [tag: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][2], 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][3] 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][4].
 - 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 :)


  [1]: http://blog.stackoverflow.com/2011/06/optimizing-for-pearls-not-sand/
  [2]: http://stackoverflow.com/a/1732454/1198729
  [3]: http://meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/18014/what-is-fgitw-and-scite-on-mso
  [4]: http://meta.stackoverflow.com/badges/119/sportsmanship