I use the rep of the OP in the following way.

If I start reading and detect something that feels amiss in the question; perhaps something that I wonder if the OP misunderstands about the topic, or something that doesn't look like the right way to ask an SE question, I quickly glance up at the OP's rep.

If it's large, I stop and reconsider that maybe it's me who doesn't understand something, or perhaps this is a good way to formulate a question.

More often than not, this turns out to be the case, and the double check saved me from wasting people's time writing a comment that that didn't need to be written nor answered, or from making a edit that didn't need to be made.

I find it extremely handy.

I generally do not see the rep first. Even for users that I recognize, I don't know or keep track of their reputation score. But a quick glance when something feels off can save time and distraction.

Also, this has probably been discussed several times over the last decade, and the fact that it's remained a particular way usually (but not always) means that there's a consensus that it's okay.

I would argue that the spirit of that message is more along the lines of, "Don't downvote someone just because they have 'low' reputation, and don't upvote someone just because they have 'high' reputation."

I would say that there's some level of reassurance of a post from someone with high reputation. Sure, it's not entirely proof that they know what they're on about in any instance of an answer, but there's a nice gut-feel when you see someone like Jon Skeet answer your question.

Rather it should be judiciously displayed to avoid the influenced voting.

Misconception:

people don't necessarily come here for voting.

They come here for content. Sometimes that is easy: there is a short question, with one, two short answers. You read all of that, and then you upvote what you found to be of quality and helpful.

But sometimes there are 20, 40 answers. And then you don't want to read all of that. Thus you look out for markers that tell you "this could be a good answer, so I spend time reading it". And such markers are for sure: the vote count of the answer, and to a lesser degree: the name+reputation of the person who wrote that answer.

Example: I don't think that all my answers on stackoverflow are extraordinary great, but I was told more than once "this is another one of your typical really great answers". People who know my user name know that they either get solid technical content, or logic-based out-of-the-box thoughts for more meta topics before reading my posts.

Long story short: for good or bad, vote count, user name and reputation can help future readers to more quickly get to the most valuable content.

Your suggestion about hiding that information until voting sounds interesting, but it directly conflicts with that other (main?!) usage pattern on this network. If at all, there should be extensive A/B testing to see how such dramatic changes work out.

The purported goal of the SE voting system is to get people to vote on the best answer, so that (a) good answers are rewarded and (b) the best answer is labelled and distinguishable for those who want to know what the best answer is but lack the expertise to judge for themselves.

As psychology has shown, when people lack expertise, they judge by what they believe are useful clues. For example, when you want to buy a product but don't know how to judge its quality, you will belive the reviewer who appears to have the necessary expertise. Advertising uses this. That is why health and beauty products are often presented by people who appear to be doctors.

On Stack Exchange, one such clue to signify expertise is reputation. When you don't know which is the best answer, you will look at who has the most reputation and believe that this person has more expertise and therefore is must be right.

Displaying answers without reputation score (and usernames! – because some have become well-known on some of the sites) would remove one of these clues and force voters to actually evaluate the answer instead of voting for the answerer.

Each of us is an individual, to be recognized by our accomplishments; more recently, to be addressed in a preferred manner. It's a form of respect to refer to a person.

If everything was asked and answered by anonymous instead of real and pen names there would be greater encouragement to ask and less incentive to answer. Vote up requires 15 reputation and vote down 100, also there are badges which encourage up votes. Voting is skewed towards up, a system of recognition for good questions and answers.

It is true that some have high reputation on one site, or multiple sites; and to see that one must click through to the user's Profile. It is also true that some have extremely low reputation, literally joined yesterday. Experienced users know that neither makes them correct or incorrect, indeed it is the quality of the post.

I have seen many instances where someone with a Doctorate didn't read the help file, and understand the standards for asking or answering. By recognizing the name, and knowing that they were new, it enabled me to comment; direct them towards the help file and assure others of the community that useful interaction would be forthcoming - indeed there was as they gained 1000's of reputation in weeks.

Where there's a tie-break needed, (for you the asker, or a 3rd party reader) it can be useful to see that one person has been vetted over others; you can take a chance with trying the lower reputation answer over an accepted answer provided by a high reputation user, or vice-versa.

Otherwise one ought to upvote and accept that which is correct - practicality things work differently. Somethings aren't as cut and dry as a polariton, as separable as a lamilar flow, or as complicated as colliding vortex rings. While some people do score upvotes for subject, humor, good looks, or reputation it's the reputation (and badges) where each can improve and claim knowledge on more than a single point.

Locking a vote prevents retraction, when it is discovered that there was a voting error. Not knowing whom supplied the answer leads to more head scratching and triple checking, potentially by someone whom doesn't understand the subject, than simply crediting the author; and potential problems that may cause.

Arguably the reputation of other answerers might assist to determine that one high reputation answerer got it right, or wrong. A mix of anonymous questions and answers surely is not better than ones attributed to an account that someone has worked hard, often for many years, to establish.

I thought about this once, but in a related context. This might have considered in the past and ignored, but I am not sure (leaving it to long-timers).

I propose showing the answerer's respective "Subject Matter Expert" index, either by:

1. The reputation filtered by the particular question tag (maybe the primary technology)
2. Tag score (same as above)

I think that this may add some dimension to this discussion.

Why do you think this is an issue?

What is your proof of this claim being made:

“In my opinion there are many instances of target [up/down]voting due to this feature.”

At the end of the day, Stack Exchange sites are a community made up of people. One of the rewards us people get for posting content, editing, and generally being a part of this community is basic recognition. If somehow your desire to anonymize things were adopted, this is what would happen:

• Many posts and actions would be anonymous to the outside world and other users and that would make it seem it all came out of some typist work labor camp.
• Disagreements would be even worse with people posting “Stop posting stuff like this, I know who you are!” comments. And there might even be a desire to start a doxing community based on identifying users on Stack Exchange for tenuous reasons at best.

At the end of the day, there might be a few people who purposefully target you, but honestly I believe this community would be far worse if the user info was anonymous on questions and answers.