The first thing that came to mind when I read this thread was "I hate it when any of my nodes stays at zero rep". The more I thought about that and my voting patterns of late, I realized "gee, if everyone votes like I do, it would explain why many nodes receive undeservedly low rep".

So what are my recent voting/posting habits?

• I rarely use all my votes. Not because I can't find enough deserving nodes, but because I have limited time to spend here.
• I scan the nodes and reply/vote only on the ones that interest me. So if everyone else casts their votes for the same reasons I do, I deduce that they don't share my immediate interests.

I feel the same way as you about XP/rep. I'm not so much concerned about gaining XP as I am with the rep of my individual nodes. Why? Because each post represents time, energy and an earnest attempt to be helpful. The resulting rep indicates my degree of success. It's no fun to realize that ones time would have been better spent elsewhere.

--Jim