jrennie
Certified jrennie as an Apprentice for his insight into the Outcast situation. I might upgrade that if he changes the "C/C++ and perl" in his notes section to "C, C++, and perl". I often think that people who say "C/C++" just don't know C++ well enough to realize how different the languages are. I'm not saying that's necessarily the case here, it's just a trend I've noticed. (I'm probably asking for an Outcast certification with that comment. ;)
My Thoughts
Anyway, I agree that it's pointless to have a class of users that can do nothing. It sounds like a solution to a problem that doesn't exist (not as of yet, anyway).
I also feel that a rating system that allowed negative ratings would be most effective if everyone could rate users, but the weighting of a user's rating (I can't help but notice that that rhymes) should be proportional to their status (i.e., a rating coming from a Master should mean much more than a rating coming from an Outcast). I seem to recall someone else mentioning this, too, but I can't remember who.