Having 'up vote me' links is SEO servitude.
If the author was serious about this stuff then a lifehacker style post about how to do it in some cool cunning way is the way to go.
That article is generic advice, a 'read me!' title to the post and 0% content or hack.
Dis. Like.
As for the "0% content" part, I'd ask you to read a couple of other posts before outright dismissing it. Perhaps from there you'll get a feel for whether it's link-bait or something I believe to be important--and worthy of broader attention.
Yea it is, it isn't a small button at the bottom. Also twitter and facebook are already full of noise but HN isn't, it feels like you want to promote noise in HN. Despite if this is what you want, that is what it feels like.
Every time somebody does this "vote me on HN" stuff, I wont if the content isn't really good and very, very clearly belongs to HN. It raises the bar even higher.