When I first joined AT I spent most of my time in General Hardware. I had a good user rating in the mid-7s with about 40 ratings. Then I migrated to OT and my user rating just started plummeting. The problem with user ratings - in ATOT, at least - is that few will give you a high rating but if you say something that injures somebody's ego, well, you get a 1. And then another, and another. My participation in the various religion/sexual orientation/politics threads drove my rating down because I had fairly polarized views...this just invites people to tarnish your rating.
My rating eventually dropped to 4.98 and that was the trigger for me to disable it. If I did not participate in OT, I probably would still have something at least over 6, but the OT peeps just drive down your rating....look at how many OT freaks have ratings of 2-3!
What's the big deal with ratings? In the this forum, it doesn't matter much, but if I list something in FS/T, I'd hate to have a crappy rating...people may think I'm a bad trader instead of just somebody who has a lot to say in OT.