Mary, with all respect, your statement about the purpose of thread ratings is simply one way looking at the matter. And it is certainly one that can be defended and argued for.

But when the new software debuted and thread ratings were turned on, there was no instruction give about their use, no guidelines for what they were and weren't for. All the little link said was "Rate this thread."

So I think the case can also be made that rating threads can be done for a variety of reasons, and in the absence of definitive instruction from the administration, who knows?

Among those variety of reasons could include (if you are rating a thread that I started):

-- You do or don't like me.
-- You find the information I post to be consistently unhelpful or helpful and you want to warn or commend re.
-- You don't think yet another thread on this topic is needed, or you do.
-- You don't -- or do -- like who has posted in the thread.
-- You just don't (or do) like the poster, the other posters in the thread, the topic, or the occasion.

Any of these can be legitimate uses of the ratings feature, imo.