I have made comments for a few years and I like this system.  The previous system had a tendency to get argumentative and personal.  I have seen many comments from posters who typically provided opinions, supported with venom, and now this has changed to making greater effort at providing informed and entertaining opinion, a side of humanity I had never seen in them.  The level of anger has decreased.  It is also infectious.

As to rating comments,  it forces former adversaries to be fair.  Offensive comments are now an anomaly.  Good comments no longer are deleted as a result of disagreement of what is written.

The emoticons are odd. There are none for sort of agree/not convinced.  I would also ask that those using the emoticons all be identified and remain so, as opposed to Judith M. and 2 others, followed by no one identified.  There are also about six emoticons and only 3 ever get identified at one time.

Standing O for the temporary editing feature.