I had not logged into my forums account since I think July. When I came back in August I had 572 alerts.
I'd just like to mention the fact to all of you that rating spam (good or bad) will, in most cases, result in a ban. Boosting someones ratings up is prohibited, just the same as spamming random posts to get your post count up. I'm not saying it's your fault or anything because theres nothing you can do. Just the players who are actually giving the ratings should be cautious.