Why Ratings Are Not Objective.

Hi, Buzsaw.I just gave you a 5 on your last post, just to make you feel better.

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-Bluejay (a.k.a. Mantis, Thylacosmilus)Darwin loves you.

I posted a couple times on an LDS forum awhile back (lds.net). They had a very simple rating system: there was a button, by the "reply" button you could use to give someone a "thank you for this useful post" or a "laugh out loud."Laughs were meant to be used for humorous posts, but they often got used to laugh at people who made points that were thought of as absurd. So, I wouldn't suggest that. Maybe there could be a "smiley face" option: then people wouldn't have to waste a post to smile. Of course, CS's post rate would go way down if that were the case. I think the "thank you for this useful post" worked fairly well: every message had a little section beneath it that listed all the people who said "thank you."The only semblance of a reputation, rating or score was a running tally of the laughs and thanks a person got.Since the crowd here is a bit more intellectually oriented and (generally) objective, I think a more sophisticated system is appropriate and workable here. But, something simple like the lds.net system could be a way to break in the concept.

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-Bluejay (a.k.a. Mantis, Thylacosmilus)Darwin loves you.

Hi, CS. I think this counts.Full rows of these......also count.

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-Bluejay (a.k.a. Mantis, Thylacosmilus)Darwin loves you.

Hi, CS. Okay, fine. I was out of line.Edited by Bluejay, : I kept the wrong smiley in the CS quote.

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-Bluejay (a.k.a. Mantis, Thylacosmilus)Darwin loves you.

Hi, Straggler. The way Percy explained it, each individual only gets one vote on a person's rating, which is the average of all the ratings that individual gave to the person.So, in order for your continual adding of "1"s to make a difference, you must have once rated a Moose message high, and each successive "1" brings down the average of your ratings.

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-Bluejay (a.k.a. Mantis, Thylacosmilus)Darwin loves you.