I tried to change out the 10 rating for a z-score rating in my own conversations. It failed due to my social circles not being familiar with the normal bell curve.
If you wanted to maximize the informational content of your ratings, wouldn't you try to mimick a uniform distribution?
This thread is for asking any questions that might seem obvious, tangential, silly or what-have-you. Don't be shy, everyone has holes in their knowledge, though the fewer and the smaller we can make them, the better.
Please be respectful of other people's admitting ignorance and don't mock them for it, as they're doing a noble thing.
To any future monthly posters of SQ threads, please remember to add the "stupid_questions" tag.