When I go to the Distributed Computing forum, the Seti@home thread displays a 5 star rating.

Once inside the thread, at the bottom right corder there's a pull down list to vote a rating but I don't think it works. I also tried voting for the UD Cancer thread but it didn't do anything ( I didn't get an error message though ).

Don't know what the problem was when you tried. I've just rated it 5*. Maybe a temporary glitch?

The problem is that it doesn't have any effect. For example, I voted on the UD thread & nothing happened. I got sent back to the thread & it still hasn't changed rating.

I think it might be some testing Julio was doing & he forgot to clean up behind him.

I noticed that rating about a week or so ago, was going to ask about it but I got distracted.
Didn't we talk about thread ratings once upon a time?

From what I know of the rating system, it won't show the rating until a certain amount of members has rated the thread...

This is to avoid any trouble caused by a couple of members... (At least that's the way it was on another board I sometimes visit...)

That makes sense. I also noticed it a while ago, but figured it was some testing Julio was doing, and he would inform us of it when it is finished.

No, I rated the Seti thread just for fun. I noticed the option and decided to try it

vBulletin has thread rating functionality built-in and has always been there but since I have seen little to no use to it, I have always disabled it from the begining, so it's no secret feature or anything .