Mystery solved! Rankings indicate to some degree the trustworthiness of the answer; for me it's quick indication when scrolling through answers, "Oh, this is place to stop and read." They have a real effect on us who need answers. After a while we'll know who has a bloated rank, and who has the goods, but until then there has to be some faith, or at least understanding, in how they are determined.
For me the rankings are so numerous and so indistinct that they almost have no meaning. Do the rankings have sufficient validity and reliability? Do they reflect real-world validation in the application of the proposed solution? I was stunned by my own rank as "frequent advisor". REALLY? "How frequently" and "how well-advised" are my questions. (If by submitting this reply, my ranking is elevated, I reject it ... see Groucho Marx).
As an interesting exercise, if a group of persons were asked to sort a random list ing of the ranks into their understanding of how the ranks are listed in real life, and then compare those results to the actual hierarchy, how well would those lists correlate?
Rankings are a facet of this new site, and the fairness and transparency of how they're determined is not trivial. If this is a "community", then all of us should have an understanding and perhaps a voice in rankings (supposedly we do by issuing "kudos", but that's only a part of the formula, if one exists). Cynically, perhaps I err in going with the community idea, and should remember that it's really about marketing.
