joshe joins the fray
I'd love to help with this. although I don't rate teams much right now(once a week or so), I put a lot of time into my posts. Life is so busy right now, that whoever whats me to rate their team can just PM me, and I'll waste(for lack of a better word. I like rating them)my time, testing, and further bettering there team with my help. I like to test teams before i rate them, and I know first hand what I'm talking about. It's not that hard to rate a team, you just have to know what your doing and just try using the team ^_^
I wouldn't really say that there is a lack of raters (there is not many consistent ones, without badges), but some of the team posters are just too reluctant to even look at what the rater wants changed, and just shrug of their post by saying, for example, that Mixmence(with roost) does not have the survivability of specsmence. Why would someone even say that when the rater has suggested roost with it, saying what it does and how it helps. It just makes me think sometimes that the team posters, just post them to say "look at my team, I'm never going to use it again" (many do this, although a lot of them are accomplished teams, and don't really need a rate but just rather like to "show off").
Anyways, I'd love to help anyone needing help. You just gotta try what suggest before you rate or judge.
EDIT: its not just the lack of team raters. What I was trying to get through in the second paragraph is the ignorance of team posters, some not even willing to change there team, even when they posted it in the first place. We are always trying to help whoever needs help, and sometimes its just not worth it. We just need in our rating posts to somehow further convince the rater to make sure they change it, with us knowing that the change will further help the team (thats why we suggested it right ^_^). Like it says in the rules, back up your rates, make sure they know everything about what you suggest, why you suggested it, some reasons why it would help, and why it would improve the team overall. Honestly, its not hard to do a full rate or to explain your suggestion, even if its something simple like 'change one of gyarados' moves to earthquake.' Its not that hard to get a paragraph of why you suggested it, how it would help, and why it works over, say, ice fang. It makes you look better, and, more importantly, it makes smogon look better. I hope someone actually read this.
EDIT2:I'm not a double post guy, so I'll answer or just give some thought into Aeolus' post. What I think we could do is to make a "team rater help thread" sticky, where more experienced team raters can occasionally help or give advice on what they look for in a team rate, so new/inexperienced users can look at that advice, copy their style, and produce more team rates and help. Then, hopefully, they will develop there own style(possibly getting a badge on their way), and pass on there style to the next generation of smogoners, and so forth. What I'm basically saying is just have a sticky, with experienced team raters posting a biography/essay like post of what they look for when rating a team, what they define as synergy, how they usually describe their suggestions/battling advice, etc... I'm sure many would benefit from this, and will help further pool many new team raters, which is what we are trying to accomplish here. I'm sorry if this was confusing, I even confused myself and had to read my entire post, along with this thread 12 times lol. I have many ideas, if your willing to hear them, and I can further expand on my idea of that sticky if you'd like.
