Hi Jelena
Thanks for your input. Jason's reply in the linked thread above has also mentioned the need to "protect" those who might rate content unfavorably, and I get where you are coming from.
However, as I've mentioned in my earlier response, I don't see how the ratings affect the content at all apart from gaining points for 4-5 stars. From a system perspective, it is not transparent if the ratings affect the search results on SCN (which most don't use anyway and rely on standard/custom Google search). From a user perspective, we don't see the rating until we have completely read the content as it is placed far at the bottom. Even if we were to object to the content by way of an anonymous low rating, it does not send any alert to the author and it just appears as an averaged-up rating. Some authors might not even notice an anonymous low rating.
On the other hand, there is already a mechanism to reward good content by awarding points through Liking. This mechanism helps surface good content (i.e. Top Liked content of a space), and visible from the Content tab (how many likes for a blog/document) even before the content is read. Compared to the rating system, any abuse of this for point cheating is transparent and easier to detect.
As already pointed out by Jurgen, I don't expect things to change in the current platform with IDX imminent arrival. It's just my two cents that hopefully be considered for the future platform.
Rgds
Eng Swee
