I do wonder about the ratings on stories on the front page. No matter what the story, there's always a few negatives within the first minute of the story being posted.
That's me. I usually spend the first few hours of each day going through all the news items and rating them negatively.
In all seriousness, I'm surprised ratings are still around. They're far less useful than the actual comments and as you say, they're usually a bit obscure.