It's obvious arguing members are going to give each other negative votes. I expected it to happen, but its not without a measure of control. And remember, its supposed to be a useful feature to express thanks for great contribution. Most members are not abusing the rating system. I've added the below part to the rules. And now i'll do a bit of a cleanup to remove what I think are unjustified "dislikes". For example if you "disliked" a post that was neither positive or negative, i'll remove it. I cant possibly clean every dislike I think is "spite voting". But I'll clean it up at least a bit. And from this point on, after the cleanup, I'll enforce the below rule.
Members who negatively vote based on spite will be restricted from voting. This is because one person has the ability to give a lot of negative votes, and give others an unjustified bad reputation. We cannot possibly monitor every vote given. So if you suspect someone in "spite voting" against you, NOTIFY ADMIN. Otherwise we wont look into it. Once admin is notified, we'll review a member's given votes and may restrict members from being able to vote.
What would be considered "spite voting"? An example is if a member gives constantly votes on "neutral posts" (posts that aren't bad in any way), then it is reasonable to assume the intention is to negatively affect another member's rating. If you are going to report a member for spite voting, you should make sure you haven't done the same yourself or we'll restrict you from voting too. Additionally, members who receive an unusual amount of "positive ratings" from new or inactive members may have votes removed.