If Firefly is an example of what PICS is or could become, the hell with PICS. Firefly encourages and rewards group behavior and suppresses individuality. Firefly would reward the discussion of the latest album by a Columbia or Capitol artist, and discourage discussion of material from independent (real independent) labels. I know because I've been there and spent quite a bit of time trying to get a rating.
this is absolutely ridiculous. the rating system is designed to be incredibly individualized. it uses sophisticated statistical techniques to find the correlations in your UNIQUE ratings given over a set of items with other people's ratings, and weighs future ratings based on these correlations. it may be even dealing with anti-correlations. in fact what you have, in effect, is a system with *no* hardwired ratings. the ratings space is different for *every*single*person* who uses the service. "you know"? get a clue, please. these systems are not at all like the record rating systems you get in stores. I sympathize with your plight however and agree that the record labeling system is a lame way to go about it. all the more reason to support things like firefly and grouplens (another interesting system that may have inspired firefly, do a yahoo search to find it). superior rating systems will begin to flourish instead of inferior ones...