it takes longer than 3 seconds to see whether a new poster is consistently an idiot and worthy of being removed. once you determine they need to be ignored, then it takes 3 seconds.
There is a delay for the Stormfront army to wake up once they get the alert, drink a beer or two, then mosey over to ET to click the ratings and vote.
Quote from sameeh55:
In one of the threads that I was watching (and was refreshing every second or so), the number of views was around 14 viewers throughout that time with no ranking. Out of a sudden, the number of viewers jumped to 30 in two seconds with all of the NEW viewers giving it one star.
You are right Gabfly1, I know that the thread I am about to read is a good one based on the ranking. The lower the ranking, the more progressive it is.
To me, in ET, the ranking is my way of sorting out the right wing garbage from common sense. The higher the ranking, the more racist and hateful the thread is.