When I provide a neutral vote, I want the person to know that someone did look at their idea and I either did not know anything about the subject or I just didn't see how it would significantly affect anything.

My thinking is that more work needs to be done but not that the idea is necessarily bad.

I often wonder why some people vote for their own ideas. It would seem to go without saying that the mere act of posting an idea indicates the poster thinks it's a worthwhile item.

If we assume that the voting system is the correct system for this site, then I would say that a neutral vote says that the reader is not totally convinced, or doesn't see the advantages of it. In any case there should always be a good explanation for casting a neutral vote.But if this site is open-source (... is it?) then maybe we can try to make a new design for this website, by giving incremental ideas of what 'we' think the site must look like.

In response to Hyenuf, I don't go out of my way to vote on my own ideas, it does it automatically. However, there is a good reason to vote on your own idea. The purpose of the voting is to determine the popularity of an idea. That is, how many people like it and how many don't. The original poster is a person and their opinion should count just as much as anyone else's. So for statistical purposes, the originator's vote should be included.