No, I'm serious, they're meaningless. I think all those things do is increase someone's tendency to post more just to beef up their post count so they get a cooler title. I think they have an adverse effect on the quality of discussion, in general.

I used to run a dialup BBS which had the same problem, so I junked the whole system (and went so far as to make it impossible for users to even see how many posts someone else had) and I saw much less noise and much more signal. People's contributions should be measured by something other than how much "hot air" they dispense.

And don't get me started on these karma/rating systems. No surer way to destroy a good online community than implementing one of those.