What is an Initial Rating?
Each time you post a message on a board, your message is awarded an Initial Rating, from 2-5 stars, displayed in ( ) light-red stars.
This Initial Rating is intended to reward high-quality contributions to the boards and is based on the quality of your prior contributions to that board.
Quality is determined, in part, by how highly other members of the community rate your posts. Reputation earned in one board does not affect your Initial Rating in a different board.
Higher Initial Ratings help your message to be seen: if others have set their Ratings Filter to a high threshold, then having a higher Initial Rating will prevent your message from being overlooked.
The best way to improve your messages' Initial Ratings is to consistently post excellent, thoughtful and well-written messages to the boards!
As the community rewards your contributions, your messages will start with higher-and-higher Ratings, and your visibility in the community will increase.
If you have no previous posts on a Board or have not received any Ratings for your previous posts, your Initial Rating will be set to the default Rating.
Currently the default Initial Rating for all users is 2 stars, but Yahoo! may decide to change this at any time.
Once the community starts to rate your message (and the number of Ratings reaches a minimum threshold of 3 Ratings or more) then your Initial Rating is tallied just like regular Ratings, and is factored into the message's Average Rating, which is displayed in ( ) red stars.
