I think this would be an excellent idea. In addition to being helpful to newbies on the site (who haven't yet determined the flamers from the quality posters) it might also tend to help reduce some of the nasty posts that are often made here on ET. -Eric
This would be a bad idea. Start back in that RE is dying thread in the eco forum. All the bears would vote each other up yet they've gotten it horribly wrong. For example, TOL up over 100% since that thread started. Now there is someone hyping Brazil, lol.
A good idea, but, even with voter guidelines in place, such as: no voting for oneself, only one vote for another, one can delete a prior vote of theirs, etc., there will remain probable negative scenarios, to be sure, as a segment of ET'ers eventually will capitalize on any/all inefficiencies: one person-many aliases voting for each other, buddies automatically voting for each other, same-opinioned posters (as stated above), etc. The last thing ET needs is more fuel for flaming personality, trading style, entity affiliation, and differing opinion disputes - er, debates... It would be better for thread viewers to have the option of clicking on a no star, through a three star rating, for each post read. That would also tend to discourage a certain level of problem posting. The above caveats also enter the star-post equation, but with much less effect, IMO. Chit Chat posts, of course, don't need any star-rating options...
Just make it like amazon. Have a 5-star rating system. And when you click on the stars, it goes to the comments section. Require everyone to comment on WHY they rated the person the way that they did. (They can even include links to threads that support their opinion) Then, it's up to the reader to determine. If a rating is suspect, you can go to the rater's profile and click on a link to see any other ratings he's done so that you can get the feel of that person as a rater. This would be an excellent resource for members trying to discern the wheat from the chaf! Good idea SunnySkies! Cash