Questions

A post can be voted 'up' or 'down'. When you post something, the number 1 appears in the box next to yout name. It is assumed that you would give yourself a 'thumbs-up.' Let's say I read the post and think it is soutstanding and I want to come back to it and follow it. I click on the upraised thumb and the number changes to a 2. Anyone else can click on the thums-up icon and keep increasing the number. People who hate your post, however, can click on the 'thumbs-down.' This collapses the post on their own screen. They no longer see the offending post. For everyone else, it just changes the number on their screens to one less. So if you see posts that have a number with a minus sign in front, it means more people hated that post than loved it and kept collapsing it on their screens. Btw, you can only do this once, although you can change your mind and collapse a post after you've voted it 'up.' Unlike some movie critics, you can't give a thread or post a 'two thumbs up.'

Every response to a thread also increases the number for that thread and everybody who votes down (collapses) the thread reduces it by one down to a minimum of zero. If you vote down a post, you no longer see that post. If you vote down a thread, you no longer see that thread.

The way I understand it, newbies coming in will automatically have their default for collapse set at I think 5. So if a post has 5 negative votes, the newbie will not see that post at all, at least until they change the minimums and maximums in their preferred settings. I assume they don't see threads collapsed by a lot of members either, but I'm not sure about that. That would explain why I don't think I've ever seen a newbie post on a thread with a zero rating though.

Gave you a thumb up for your good answer. Thanks

Right back atcha!