Let me clarify my initial thinking on this.

A reasonable idea was proposed if technically feasible -- much of the problems would likely go away if you could see who rated each thread and how they rated it. Anonymity likely feeds the problems. In other words, members would have to own and be accountable for their actions.

But I'm not clear on the benefit that the ratings feature provides, and it would seem to me that that would have to come first. The only reason to minimize a harm is to capture a benefit. What is that benefit?

If there were masses of threads, and you needed help to figure out which ones to read, thread ratings could be a useful guide.

But I haven't heard this argued, so I wonder whether this is a need, that there's just too much to sift through and so a filter is needed.

I suspect that the large number of forums serves as a fairly useful filter.

If there were just one or four forums on Flyertalk there'd be so much disparate information that wasn't well-organized that thread ratings might be useful.

But maybe I'm wrong, and I really am interested in the benefits of thread ratings that I might be missing.