Actually, I don't recall the people who got the one-star treatment as complaining about it so I don't think it is right to say that they were whining.

Perhaps you are referring to this post which was made by AlanW:

I "one-starred" one of the birthday threads.

Go ahead, call me morally reprehensible, an *******, cluck your tongues and wag your fingers (or is that the other way around?) but while you do so, consider this:

The thread I rated with one star was a birthday thread. Those suck. Why? Because they aren't fair. Some people get tons of birthday wishes, some get a few, and they aren't based at all on the value of a person's contribution to FT. I got like half a dozen posts on my last birthday after I had to prompt somebody to post it in the first place.

Is that what you were referring to as "whining"? Somebody complaining that only six people wished him a happy birthday and he had to ask someone to start the thread?

I often took it upon myself to cast a "counter-balancing vote" when I observed a thread with an inordinately high or low thread rating on (what I considered to be) its merits. Upon casting such a vote, I would often learn -- through the mathematical calculation -- that the particular thread rating had been based on a handful of votes.

The "inappropriately" rated threads seemed to fall into a pattern, of an "unpopular" topic originator, of an "unpopular" contributor, or an "unpopular" point of view predominating on the thread.

While I appreciated the reputation feature while we had it, and the thread-rating corollary, the reduction in inflammatory actions and clique-based behavior has justified, and continues to justify, in my view, the original decision of Randy to dispense with these features.

Well, this civility went south in a hurry.