That's not the rule for rate abuse as said by Cypriot yesterday on Teamspeak, if it looks like rate abuse then it will be punished for.
As I have heard in the past. I believe it is rate abuse if you give 3 or more dislikes to a person in one day. This is what I've heard, I'm not sure if this is the proper form of the rule. Some confirmation from a mod or admin about this would be nice. It would also be nice if the rule was clearly stated, so there would be no confusion about this anymore.
There is no time limit. Essentially you have targeted a group of people on a thread, rating them all negatively, plus targeted one player. This is rates abuse. There is no "i only rated twice in an hour and waited 5 hours". As the admin has said, if it looks like rates abuse it is. We look at the context, the amount of ratings, take into consideration the time of the ratings and the posts that were rated. As this is clearly rates abuse consider this your first warning before a ban, Do not abuse the rating's system.
I will be. I will mark this pending until ratings are removed. If you want the thread opened again just shoot me a message