I was wondering this too–not that I mind, it’s just a sudden difference seeing all those stars.
Okay! What the heck is going on here!!!
This is not my original post!!! We either have an out of control moderator here or a hacker!
My original post -
Who is the busy buddy that’s been rating every single thread?
One of the regular contributors here (doubtful) or some lurker 
?
Care to step forward Mr. Busy Buddy? 
-Brian
It’s not me, I don’t even know how to rate threads - Peter
Ditto, Rob
???
For the past two weeks someone has been going through all the threads and rating them. Sometimes disrespectively so. You see the 1 - 5 star ratings next to the titles in the listing of the threads. I’m just curious who is suddenly doing this?
-Brian
What’s a busy buddy?
Walt
Just a play on a busybody - A person who meddles or pries into the affairs of others.
-Brian
Good Question!!
I rate this thread 5 stars!! [:D]
(Sorry, couldn’t resist…)
I will admit to rating one - Ray’s electrical meter and I just changed back too 4 stars, first time was a 5 but as you said someone is changing them I tried 5 agin but it would not go to five . I normaly don’t rate but Ray’s needed to be a five star. Like my Mom use to say " If you can’t say somthing nice about someone THEN don’t say anything. " That’s why I rated it a 5 star, and I think the A hole that rated SMC’s Charle Brown a1 star should be taken out and shot.
Dave
Ratings? Do spelling and grammar count? [:o)]
Later,
K
Rate a Forum string, that seems odd. I thought these were to entertain and impart knowledge, I didn’t know how to rate a string, what do you look for, good grammar, correct spelling, or entertainment value? I thought the stars indicated how many people responded over a given period of time. I haven’t figured how to get back to the index without going to the main page.
OH, OH, OH, I KNOW: it is syntax we judge the forum strings. Now does 5 stars mean it has good syntax or bad syntax?
Brian
I just rated this one 5 now…just for fun!!! Had never really paid attention to that before!!!
Steam on The Bel Del
Maybe it’s more like th pH scale…1 is bad one way…5 is bad the other way…
we’re just looking for something close to 3!!! [(-D]
I had a friend in high school that tried to tell that to his parents about grades…
"An “F” is bad…but an “A” is bad too…makes you seem to pretentious…
a “C” is good and solid…right in the middle!"
They never really bought his line of reasoning!!! lol
underworld
The “busy buddy” just moved one of my posts and it wasn’t me so I’m thinking the person has to be someone with system admin access. I think we had this problem a couple years ago too. Are we doing something wrong?
Rex
Brian, not this moderator. I freely admit to rating some of R
I say we take this to the moderator, it’s never been funny in any shape or form. - Peter
Ray–I moved a few threads yesterday into the railroad building forum, so that was me. As for the rating, I don’t even know how to do that (my options are limited as I use a Mac). The excessive rating seems exclusive to GR–I didn’t see much rating on the other railroad titles.
The ratings only show if you are logged-in it seems. I wondered how it was done but on investigation I noticed a star ratings box just above the “sort posts” box at the head of the page when reading or replying to posts.
It’s part of the message board software. If it becomes a big problem for the members, the webmaster or the folks that maintain the message board part of the website should be able to remove it from the code or just disable it.
I’ve really never even paid any attention to the stars. Most times I’m just looking at titles and whether there’s any new posts. Like some of the others have said, I didn’t even know how to “rate” threads until this subject came up and got me curious enough to look for it.