Rate Thread: Meaning & Effect Explained

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When we reply to a thread, there is a "Rate thread" pull-down menu. What does it mean? And if we select a rating, what effect does it have?

Also, does the rating apply only to post 1? Or does (can) it apply to a specific non-OP reply post within the thread? Or, instead, does it apply to all previous replies plus post 1?

Also, is there any way to see which threads have a high rating, and which threads have a low rating, or something like that? Just wondering what this menu means, and its effect.

I did a quick search, but did not find instructions about this menu yet.
 
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I think the ability to rate a thread overall is inbuilt to the software we use but it has been disabled. I suspect this is why very old threads sometimes have a 1-5 scale next to their name perhaps from when the site was young and this feature was enabled. Personally I think that thread rating is a bad idea and that threads should stand on their own merits rather than the possibly flawed* opinion of it's readers.

*by flawed opinion I mean the metrics by which a user rates a thread which could be unrelated to how good the science in it is.
 
Ryan_m_b said:
I think that thread rating is a bad idea and that threads should stand on their own merits rather than the possibly flawed* opinion of it's readers.

*by flawed opinion I mean the metrics by which a user rates a thread which could be unrelated to how good the science in it is.

Yeah, especially with a certain user lurks about whose ID ends in "wuino", his threads would all be self-rated very high, lol.

Rhody...