This provides a way for people to rank the posts that they read. Ranks can mean a variety of things, depending on the context. For example, they can be a way of denoting the overall quality of articles or thread posts. They can also be used for voting, where somebody makes a proposal and everybody agrees with a high rank or disagrees with a low one.

 

To view information on ranks:

• Click the Action Menu icon (), and hover the mouse over the Rank option ().
• A pop-up will display the following information:
  • number of people who have read the post
  • number of people who have ranked the post
  • the rank that you assigned to the post
  • the average of all of the ranks

To assign a rank to a post:

• Click the Action Menu icon (), and next to the Rank option (), click the desired number.
• By default, the "no-vote" condition is denoted by the "~" being selected. If you have voted and you want to retract your vote, simply click this item, and it will no longer be included in the average.
• System folders (e.g., the "My..." folder) cannot be ranked — only items that have been created by users can be ranked.

Anybody with creator rights to a folder can determine how ranks are displayed.

• Click the Action Menu icon (), and next to the Metadata option (), click edit.
• In the Data Type section,
  • the posts can be sorted by rank,
  • the average ranks of posts can be shown in an icon next to the titles of the posts, and
  • the users who are eligible to cast votes can be selected.
• Click Submit.

In addition to ranking posts made by users, you can also rank the users themselves. To rank a user:

• Click the username (such as in a copyright notice, or in the bio panel of a thread). This opens a sub-window, showing the user's profile, and all posts made by the user.
• Click the Action Menu icon (), and next to the Rank option (), click the desired number.

Assigning a rank to a user has a lot of utility. First, it provides a way for the most popular users to get acknowledged. In a folder that lists users, sorted by rank, the most popular ones will bubble to the top. As with all ranks, there is no way for anybody to tell who cast which vote, so you can vote however you please.

 

Far more significantly, you can tell QDL (in the My... / Settings / Format dialog) to use your rankings of other users to weight the votes that they cast on other stuff. For example, if you have ranked "Fred" highly, and if he has voted on stuff in a folder that is sorted by rank, his votes will count for more than votes cast by other people. (When weighted rankings are in effect, if you ranked a user as a "9", that user's vote counts for 9/5 of a vote cast by an unranked user, while a user ranked as a "1" will have a vote counting for 1/5.) You can still see the unweighted average rank for each item, by hovering your mouse over the Rank label. But the sorting order will be determined by the weighted ranks. This is useful for folders in which users rank items on the basis of the quality of those items, and you'd prefer to spend your time just reviewing the good stuff. Lots of sites use rankings for this purpose, but the utility is diluted if a lot of the people casting votes have a different set of standards from you. If you want to see the items sorted more by the opinions of people that you respect, this is the way.