If you use Firefox, you can install Adblock Plus and the Adblock Plus Element Hiding extentions. That will allow you to hide CSS elements. I used it to block the rating section and now I don't see them at all.

I really want to be able to decide for myself whether a comment is good or bad. There's no way I can just not look at a rating and I find that it gives me a prejudiced opinion of a comment before I've even read it.

That is probably the best. Just ignore it like ads.

i wrote some dumb post against, i was appalled.

There is a long historical tradition here, of scientist voting with hands raised for that or that position, opinion - and having it then made accepted Science. That might concern the number of toes of some exotic animal or the need to stop the plebs smoking or the danger of rays (N, X, cosmic, etc.) Real examples, germane to today.... Solid position papers by high up individuals can also sometimes stifle debate.

Group, collective opinion are often superior to that of individuals. In some areas, that appears to be so.

Guessing, betting, predicting some events.

One popular, engaging read on the topic, is J. S. “On the wisdom of crowds.”

amazon

Crowds can be damn accurate, and anyone can come up with examples. Not in Science though, where paradigm changes are most often resisted. (I know that is not really what we are dealing with here.) In the energy field, popular adherence plays a huge role because it is used all day and everyday and feeds the whole of the economy. So if ppl want to double up, or ride electric scooters, and Science might have some things to say about it, but in the messy daily to and froing, other factors (culture, habits, desires, etc.) intervene. In that sense crowd judgments would be of interest.