One of the options in voting is to add a vote to a nodes score. My question- short and simple: Why ++ a node?

Up voting nodes is an incentive to braggarts and high-level monks, who choose to post on the well-known and -agreed subjects (like use strict). It is my opinion that unless a node is truly unique in nature there is no reason to up vote it. After all, the monk lacked the courage to say something new in some amazingly original node, instead giving some run-of-the-mill answer that would be obvious to almost all readers; there is merit in courage, but courage is in going where no person has gone before. (E.g. merlyn . Up voting a node by this monk that, while is has some true merit, is not up to the superb standard of Learning Perl is a disincentive for such an expert to write a few more truly amazing columns; something that I believe this community should be promoting to its’ utmost.

Instead I see node ratings go up, where a node is logical and pertinent to the website, but no different from hundreds of other well-reasoned, but ultimately fully understood and documented, answers. I ask again: What reason is there to up vote such a node? Is it because you feel that it is your responsibility to moderate nodes, and give them ratings correlated to the merit of the node, or is there some ulterior motive that I miss? Even nodes in which the questioner is utterly confused or poster is giving a completely correct answer, what would make you want to up vote the node? Isn’t there some totally off-topic node, or personal attack or insult, that merits a ++, instead?

I could continue, but (I hope) you get the point. Voting -- is just the opposite of voting ++. The above node seems to recommend cancelling the -- vote, and moving the "neutral point" of reputation from 0 to some positive value (say 4). Given that there is no moral statement in voting, I see no compelling advantage in doing this.