Not that rating threads is useless, but isn't the number of 'posts' or 'views' a better indicator of popularity? For example: I don't have time to read everything so I tend to skip book titles, Irex forums and programming forums (people don't want to see me there
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Just one look at a thread title, the numbers of posts and views and sometimes who wrote last, will steer me towards or clear.
The stars usually say nothing to me because they are totally subjective to the interests of those blogging on a particular thread. If a prog thread says 5 stars I'll still keep clear because I understand nothing of it anyway.