Voting should be encouraged but voting for the sake of voting should be dissuaded.
###Voting on answers is pretty self explanatory
It's easy to notice a good answer amongst less-good answers even if it's competing with your own answer.
I know it's very easy for the person with the most points on the site to say "be honest with your votes" but I mean it. We're all here for the same reason: to help people. Not voting the best answers up stops the site working like it's supposed to and that hurts its whole efficiency.
###But what makes a good question?
- Is it something that affects us?
- Something we think may affect lots of other users?
- Something that doesn't have enough attention?
- Something you don't understand (for technical, not semantic reasons)?
- Something you can answer?
I personally vote for the first four. I don't think the fifth is enough on its own especially if it's done for the reason of getting the question asker over the points threshold so they can give your answer a +1.
Ultimately this isn't something we can enforce. People will do what they want, when they want. But yes, including something in the FAQ might get people to vote more freely.