Appropriate use of reputation points

[mtrawls]

I searched around a little, but didn't see anything; forgive me if this is discussed extensively elsewhere. But, it seemed to me it would be a good time to have a discussion about the appropriate use of reputation points (whether they serve any good or not should be another discussion, if someone is so inclined).

The reason for this was sparked by a negative reputation I got while attempting a forage into the chit-chat forums. In specific, in regards to my post in the Draft thread (this one), I received negative points, with the explanation being (paraphrasing) along the lines that even Bush admitted Iraq has no connections to terrorists, and particularly to 9/11. First let me state that I really do not care at all about the rep points themselves, and I don't intend to violate the privacy of the person who gave me that rep.

However, it did get me thinking. I was dissapointed, not because I got a negative rep, but because it seemed so blatanly to be because of my politics. Now, I don't think anyone on the boards would agree that the reputation system should be used to punish or even encourage a particular ideology, -- and I understand too that if you agree with something or disagree with something, you would tend to up vote it or down vote it, respectively. But I felt my post was reasonably well thought out and inclusive. And it seems too that at least the first claim (Iraq having no connections to terrorists) is patently false, and the second claim is open to wide speculation as to just exactly what "connections" means. (Though my post had nothing to do with the second claim in the reason for down voting.)

It seems to me that if this happened to me, others might potentially be abusing the reputation system, perhaps unwittingly. So are there any guidelines? Should a funny post be upvoted, or should it be reserved for serious and informative answers? What excactly should be the standard for downvoting, -- simply a non-informative, non-useful post, or one that actually is offensive or otherwise inappropriate? Should the chit-chat section count towards rep, and if so should we try to at least informally limit it to FIRST or engineering-related topics, or otherwise very intelligible and insightful posts? I tend to stay away from giving out rep myself, but if I see something that I would like to encourage (e.g., someone giving their Woodie Flowers essay in that recent thread or volunteering for the programming conventions talked about some time ago), I do upvote it. I use it rarely so that it has a more pronounced effect, -- I know this is opposite of how others use it, and I doubt there is any "preferred" method, ... so I thought an informative discussion about it would be handy. I guess I just don't understand if the rep system is just being tested out right now to see how it is, or if there's an intended use for it besides it being there. Color me confused