Because they don't feel comfortable voting* publicly.

*I assume you mean rating

That's one I used to wonder about years ago. Of course, back then revenge rating was an up-and-coming fad. One that, thankfully, died down to where it's now almost extinct.

I don't notice too many anonymous raters these days, but they still have their individual reasons. One can never be exactly sure what those are. I would hazard a guess that fear of revenge rating may still exist. Mostly, though, I assume they just prefer not to have their name showing whether they rate with a VH or an NH because they feel their ratings are their own.

This is one of those questions that will never have a perfect answer.

~Danielle~

Hidden ratings are so perplexing at times.

I can understand, for instance, why someone would rate a review SH, NH, or OT hidden. To avoid revenge rating, more than likely.

What I don't get, and as of today I have several of those, are hidden VHs.

Puzzling, this hidden rater is.

Alex

Hidden bad-raters (NH, SH, OT) just don't have the balls to own up to their ratings.

As for people who hide all their ratings, they really feel some need to be anonymous which I respect. After all, a hidden VH is almost like doing a good deed anonymously.

Well if you look at hidden voting, that's in place so people vote honestly and don't get harassed because they voted for the "wrong" person. I guess you could try to apply that to epinions except it mostly gets used by revenge raters and also no one should be taking ratings as seriously as votes. Every vote counts (sorta) but here only the overall rating counts.

I'm sure someone will point us to some other thread because this discussion sounds really familiar.

Oh, I agree with you about the cowardice of hidden "bad" ratings. I am often afraid of giving a badly written review anything less than a Helpful, lest I start getting a deluge of Not Helpful or even Off Topic ratings in retaliation.

I have, of course, handed out quite a few low ratings, but I mostly avoid rating reviews by writers I perceive would not handle it maturely.

As for anonymous VHs, I can respect the (hidden) rater's desire to do a good deed without wanting anything in return.

Alex

A sound adherence to the wholeness in purity to writing and the writer and to the nature of that written!

Amen, brotha.