I have just read (Page 6) that Colin Powell will be paid $200,000 per speaking engagement and in asia possibly $1,000,000.  I accept that there will be people who will pay this amount to hear him despite his role in Iraq including is mindnumbing speak to the U.N.  Having read this weekend the controversy in the British papers over Cherie Blair's fees while speaking on tour, although the issues differ somewhat surely outrage should flow.

One can always count on Jon Stewart who showed Powell in the pace car at the Indie.  Do public servants have no limits?

    NO ONE SHOULD BE ABLE TO ANONYMOUSLY POST A RATING. Josh Marshall just rightly drew attention to the possible misuse of the rating system, but it is more likely to be abused when someone can do so anonymously.

I had a comment that had two 5's and one 3.  Someone anonymously was able to come along and torpedo that by putting in a Zero rating.  I didn't even know there were zero ratings.  It was a lengthy and thoughtful comment, and obviously other readers thought so.  This is not unique.  Other people use the ratings system as a weapon -- and there should at least be some control over that.  Having people always give their names is one way to control not only trollery in the comments, but trollery in the ratings

Are you suggesting that we troll-rate Colin Powell?

(Ahh, if only we could do that with public servants.)

I find the ratings system detracts from the desired coffeeshop atmosphere.  Main problem is that the comments keep resorting themselves which disrupts the flow of conversation. Also, people worried about how their remark will be rated tend to write overly long and sometimes pompous essays.

I don't, unfortunately, have a solution. I belong to a virtual community which has no ratings system but does have a gatekeeper, which was originally one person but now a committee.  People who want to join must write an email explaining a bit of why (most are admitted, this is just a screen for obvious nincompoops); and people who behave offensively can be asked to leave (happens rarely).  There is no trolling.  But the numbers here are bound to be much larger so I doubt such a system (benevolent dictatorship, essentially) would work.

I would simplify the rating system by having only one category ... "Don't miss!" ... along with the number of readers who took the trouble to rate it that way. If I saw that several people thought a post was "Don't miss" then I would definitely check it out, and would probably add my own recommendation to read it if I felt the same way. Whatever system is used, I would do away with all negative ratings. 

I agree, ZB, there needs to be some kind of indentation to make the conversation easier to follow.

Further thoughts:

Another potential problem is that people who want their own comment to stay on top will have little incentive to rate others' highly in the same thread.

Also, people might use the lowest, "inappropriate" label to tag items that aren't right on-topic. That hardly seems the greatest possible offense in a coffeeshop. 

On a closely related, maybe even appropriate topic, I'd also like to see an delete option and maybe an edit option for posters.

by those who insist on putting "moderate" in their name and a certain Petey

on this blog who seem intent on creating a rather ungenerous, anatognistic culture vis a vis the ratings system. For those of you who are new to scoop-based blogs, the norm on Kos and at other blogs who use this software is to give eloquent, well-constructed comments the highest rating, mean-spirited, highly abusive, demagogic, baiting, plainly idiotic comments troll ratings (and the more mature folks will generally hand a 2 to let people know they're getting steamed and to knock it off), but to leave other comments that fall in between alone (so at least to imply to the world that you have something better to do with your life than spend the time being an anal retentive school marm). So far I've noticed a great deal of ratings abuse and school marmishness here (far more than there ever has been at kos), and quite frankly if it continues a lot of folks are just going to go back to kos or elsewhere where the community norms are more rational, clear and intuitive. Also, as has been noted elsewhere, scoop was designed for threading, and without it comments threads just don't work.

In Yglesias' "Okrent versus Krugman" thread, two commenters answered freeper Al's challenge.

The first admitted not reading the NYTimes, seemed not to have read the Public Editor's blog, mischaracterized Okrent's claimed political sympathies, and concluded with a platitude. Yglesias rated that comment a 5.

The second answered the freeper directly and pointed out that if the growth estimates used by the privatizers to show Social Security is in crisis are used, no economist believes that a 6.5% annual return on private account investment is possible and that Krugman barely overstated his case, if at all. Yglesias rated that comment a 4.

Of course, had Yglesias chosen to respond to either with a comment, perhaps, we'd know what rating standard he was employing. But for now, that standard remains a mystery.