What bother's me is that people keep complaining about anonymous down ratings when as far as I've been able to ascertain, you can't rate anything unless you are logged in with a membername. I understand that even being logged in you can rate without leaving a comment and thus it looks anonymous to the users, but the ratings are logged by accountname and can be checked by the admin's.
As for this "Mysterious Down Rating" conspiracy theory that seems to be growing a life of it's own. There's no mystery at all. If an Item only has two ratings, one being 5 stars and one being 1 star, the system is going to average it out. Just because I happen to rate something with only one or two stars doesn't mean I'm being malicious, it just means that is what I think that item deserves.
With only 5 Stars total being allowed, I reserve 5 Stars for items that I find are exceptionally excellent. On the average, I rate most items with 2 or 3 stars unless they're outstanding in some way. I feel that is the most honest way to rate items.
It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education. - Albert Einstein