I see a practice here which I find unhelpful: "bandwagon upvoting" where it appears that people vote up the leading comments. Do we really need to vote the top comments in a post out of the park, please tell me what utility this provides?
I saw this a lot on slashdot when I used to frequent that site. Comments that were at 3 or 4 got pushed to 5, but comments at 2 or less got ignored. But on that site, there was a hard upper limit of 5 points.
As far as my voting practices: I upvote select comments I think are particularly lucid and have not been voted up "significantly"
I downvote what I think are innapropriate comments such as hateful, vulgar, insulting (see this site's guidelines) "excessively" whiny or demanding or just plain babble (rarely, usually I just ignore babble).
I do NOT downvote opinions I disagree with. I either ignore them or reply.
Overall, though, I think the lack of hard and fast rules to voting adds more than detracts. If we all vote in different ways, then that makes the site more dynamic.
> "bandwagon upvoting" where it appears that people vote up the leading comments.
Same deal as with Google Adwords and the reason advertisers are willing to pay top dollar for spots 1-4(ish). They're more visible, so they get more action.
You have to bear in mind that by design the top is that space where eyes fall first. So it stands to reason those comments at the top of the page are the ones that get the most action. Not saying "agreeing because others agree" doesn't go on... I just think it's effect is dwarfed in comparison to the effect visibility has on a comment's votes.
I don't see any way around the problem -- if it's a problem at all -- without altering the presentation of comments. I just don't think it's worth that.