Originally Posted by
intuition
But more importantly, I think the opt out for participation includes the possibility to not have your posts voted on, not having your posts or username appearing in top-lists or automatically featured on the blogs, frontpage et.c. (should such functions be implemented).
As I said, the latter is not something I support. No consequences should flow from vote count of your posts, other than a possible inclusion in TalkMail or a curated FT home page. Both of those are built by people who can read.
The former sounds difficult to implement, but I will ask. The software would need to allow or not allow the button post by post, according to the preferences of the poster. That seems over the top, especially given that only upvotes are allowed. Besides, if you disable display any Helpful votes, how would you know whether anyone had voted on your posts?