Robert Hayden said:
Forgive my ignorance, but isn't this a lot of overkill? I mean, one could simply set up a filter for subjects/people you don't want to see or press the 'D' key.
You have to decide who that author is and what the subject is, first. Therefore, as somebody said:
Of course, the anonymous remailing services would prevent you from figuring out the true author, so you can't filter for people in the manner you describe.
Likewise the true subject may not be apparent either. Ratings are a means for a group in discourse to engage in a meta-discourse about what they wish to speak and to hear. Some form of this is going to be necessary to support anonymity and pseudonymity, which breaks the current social structures which hold together the existing meta-discourse (facial expressions, body positions, mere presence). Eric