I think the misconception here is that -1 is necessarily bad. That's really close to zero. That means that just as many people upvoted as downvoted. Now if the reputation of one of my nodes was like -40, then I'd be put off, but -1 is nothing, IMHO. Perhaps a new user FAQ or some such thing could explain something like this to reduce the stigma that someone might feel for having their question voted to -1.

Just my opinion of course!