>Well, it is not just a technical issue. Let's see the possible scenario.

>How does the reply "know" that there was another question posted in it? Sould there be the mechanism to mark the "reply" message also as the "question" message?
>

In a threaded environment, by walking up the tree, you can find out the message being responded to. I don't see the complication here.


>The person who starts the thread automatically gets the access to links "Mark this message as a help to this thread" and "Mark this message as an answer to this thread". If somebody else posts another question in his the reply, should it mean that he automatically gets access to these links? How? Or everybody has to have access to these links?
>

Perhaps both the originator of the thread and the person who asked the question should be able to mark as helpful to the thread. I think that would simplify things.


>If the answer is posted somewhere else in this thread and you look at the thread map, how do you know is it the answer to the original question or to secondary question? Or just mark them all as "Help to this thread"?
>
>Should the secondary question message to be marked too somehow? Should they have different color of marks/stars?
>
>How do the other users/potential answer givers know that there was another (even related) question posted in the thread? Should they read all the messages just in case? It is clear that posting another question in the reply to the long thread reduces your chances for the answer.
>

As for the rest, I don't think it matters. I would agree that this would over-complicate things. However,that does not mean that a solution is not feasible. Initially, things may seem over-complicated. However, after looking at things for a while, the solutions tend to get simplified. In this case, simply allow two parties to mark a message is helpful. There can only be one originating poster of a thread and a response can only link to one message.

Simply loosen the logic as to who can rate a thread and the problem is solved. Again, I don't really care about the ratings per se. I am only responding to the fact that somebody tried to rate a post and could not.