Update: A limited scope trial is off the table for now due to other development priorities.

Do people on FT use the "rate this thread" feature? The few times I clicked there, it felt like I was entering a black hole with no indication of how the stars would be used. Moreover, I've never been able to find a star rating (derived from this feature) for any threads on FT. [I'm not counting TalkMail or the "thread of the month" stuff that started appearing pretty recently.]

IIRC the stars only appear after 5 or more ratings. Since almost nobody uses the feature, no threads show ratings.

If no one is using the thread ratings feature, can't one infer that people wouldn't use the post "rating" feature?

Where do they appear? I've never noticed a single thread with a star rating on FT.

I would assume a post rating feature would get more use than a thread rating feature -- because some indivdual or clique will more easily be able to target a message about which FTers they like and which ones they despise and pile on in that eay; and because the post rating (and "like" is a kind of binary rating) would be more visible and send a more targeted message than a multi-star rating of an active thread with differing opinions in it from lots of different people.

Right below where you choose (sort of in the upper left corner of this thread) which page in this thread you want to read there is a pull down for "rate thread".

Has anyone thought about what happens to "like" indicators when a post is edited after someone likes a post? ;)

Thanks but I know where a person can rate a thread--in fact, I rated this one within the last hour to verify whether the function was still available and then I tried to rate it again as a test--but my question is where one can see what a thread's rating is, for the few threads that have at least five ratings? I've never yet discovered a rated thread on FT but I haven't hunted systematically.

Left of the "last post" column when looking at all the threads in a forum?

As someone who has spent as much time on Milepoint as on Flyertalk, I will say that one of the things I miss most on FT is the lack of a like button. There have been hundreds of times that I've wished FT had this simple option. I feel it would be a GREAT addition to FT and would help make this a friendlier, more positive place.

i hope to see it here soon.

No, because the thread-rating function is hidden and buried. Post-level "likes" are easy to see and access.

So what happens if a post that is "liked" gets its content edited and ends up having a different meaning than it initially had at the time the post was "liked"?

There is room for mischievous and misleading behavior if the "likes" don't disappear upon a post being edited for content.

What/who determines whether the editing, possibly done in multiple steps, of a post affects its "content"? It would be an incredible amount of work for mods to examine this and I'm not aware of automated software capabilities that would consistently be accurate.

If a post is edited to correct spelling, does that count?

It shouldn't, unless the spelling correction is something like the two letter change from "jerk" to "hero."