What does the "Rate Thread" feature do?

[retire@40]

The top right of each thread has a "Rate Thread" dropdown menu to rate the thread from terrible to excellent.

What is the point of the rating? Do others see it, or is it for my own viewing only?

By the way, I voted this thread as "excellent"

[MikeD]

I, too, rated it excellent.

Mike D.

[Martha]

For the purpose of showing how the rating feature works, and no reflection on retire@40, I rated the thread terrible, which has now reduced the overall rating by one star.

Every once in a while I see a rated thread, but the feature doesn't seem too popular.

[pfpelican]

And you only get to vote once per thread. It hollers if you try more than once.

[retire@40]

OK, now I know how it works. Thanks.

[retire@40]

I wonder if there would be a way to put a parameter into this software to allow the user to view posts the user rates "average or better" thereby ignoring all threads the user rates as bad or terrible.

This would greatly improve the readability of this forum by filtering out what the user considers forum spam.