If someone wants to give my image a 1 or 2 -- whether it's because they just don't like the image, or they don't like something I said in a forum, or maybe they just have an irrational hatred of people named Dan -- heck, that's FINE, that's their prerogative. I mean, that's life. The fact is that the current system does NOT encourage a full spectrum of honest ratings. At it's worst, it encourages shameless brown-nosing. At best, it encourages people to only post a rating on those images they truly feel are exceptional, meaning that most people will simply not bother to rate an image they find merely "average". This is such a basic concept, it's amazing to me that the present system was implemented in the first place. Again, I'll use myself as an example. I'm new here, and only have a few images posted so far. Yet I've got ALL 9s and 10s on my images. I myself would only give most of these an average score. Now, I can accept that there are a few people out there who truly believe my work is the most fantastic thing, that it really deserves a 10. But there have GOT to be tons of other sensible people out there who agree that my work (and MOST of the work posted here) is really only average. However, these people WILL NOT post such a rating given the current system. When ratings of 9 and 10 are the mean and the mode, something is seriously wrong with the rating system. Bottom line -- if you want brown-nosing and falsely inflated ratings on all your images, keep things the way they are. If you want ratings to provide a better, more accurate and well-rounded sense of your image, stop tagging names on ratings. Dan