Our forum was just updated today to the newest version, and a new "Rating" feature was added in the update. We had no idea what it was, and I finally figured it out by going to the forum of the company that makes the forum software.

So here's the deal: You can rate the topic of a given thread based on how good you think the topic is. You just click on the original subject line and go down to the bottom of the page to where it says "Additional Information." And there is a place to rate that topic with stars from one star for the lowest rating to five stars for the highest rating. If you are the first and only person to give a rating, you and everyone else will see the number of stars that you voted. As additional people assign ratings to that topic, the number of stars will be averaged out, so you and everyone else will see the average number of stars of the ratings. If you just point your mouse pointer on the stars, it will show you how many people have assigned ratings to that particular topic.

I think this is incredibly dumb, and it sounds like a lot of other forum administrators are already clamoring to be able to either eliminate this "Rating" feature or at least be able to turn it on or off.

So play with it a while if you want to, but we will probably be eliminating it unless you guys can think of some reason why it should be allowed to continue as a part of the forums on this website. It is going to be in effect for at least a week, so please give feedback if you can think of any useful purpose for it. [color:"red"] [/color] [color:"red"] [/color]