This shows IMDb's comment 'usefulness' system is broken

So one idiot expresses his opinion. How does that make the system of rating usefullness useless? Perhaps to him (or her) the review was useless.
Furtunately you don't abuse the system that way. But there are some who might think you abuse it by posting threads that have nothing to do with the movie the thread is supposed to be about, in this case Futureworld. If complaining or disagreeing about IMDB's system or people who don't use it to your satisfaction is what you want to do, why not take it to a board where people are interested in that sort of thing? The people here are more likely interested in Futureworld.

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What they should do is require the person clicking on the useless tab to give a reason why (similar to the comments section on Amazon) or restrict one user to only clicking useless once every couple of minutes. If they are serious about rating a review fairly then this would not phase them.

While I agree this is a valid topic for discussion, I agree with the person who posted that maybe a new thread should be started for this topic, a new thread in the main forum, which is not under one particular film. I imagine this issue applies to all films in the IMDb database, not just Futureworld.

I suspect overall that some people do give Comments a vote on the non-useful side, for reasons other than whether or not they thought that the Comment was a fair assessment of the film. Sometimes I give a Comment a 'No' usefuleness vote, because the Comment merely says that the person did or did not like the movie, and they don't give good reasons why they do, or why they don't. Other people get lost in Comments about how they feel about abortion, or single parenting, when their opinion on a political topic addressed in the film, is not a fair or even interesting evaluation of the film's qualities and the film's shortcomings. I think overall, I prefer Comments that objectively address how the film was prepared, presented, and to some extent the user's opinion of whether or not they liked the movie does have a legitimate role in a good Comment, but the Comment for me should contain considerably more information than just whether or not the viewer liked the film experience overall. I enjoy Comments which are descriptive of the acting, the writing, the screenplay, the cinematography, the soundtrack, and the skills of the director, among other things, like the cast, and the timing and pace of the film, and then after explaining all of that, I might care whether or not the reviewer enjoyed, or didn't enjoy the film.

That being said, I think some of these posts left out some important details about why people think the rating system is being abused. The reasons offered were that people who are desperate, give Comments a bad rating, so that other's Comments will look worse than their own. If that isn't the most paranoid, lame, and immature reason if I have ever heard of one. What's the matter with you, did somebody give your Comment a bad rating? Since there is no place to write the reason for why a person doesn't like a Comment, I find it very revealing that the reason you come up with would be so "High-School" and childish. Because they want to make other users Comments look worse than their own Comments? Someone made the point, people with opinions which don't agree with their own, are "morons"?

While I think Futureworld is a fantastic movie which I enjoy, I wouldn't go so far as to say that people who didn't like some of the Comments which were positive appraisals of Futureworld, are desperate morons who want to make the other Forum Member's Comments look worse than their own Comments. I also respect other people's right not to like the same movies I do. Granted some of the people who give bad reviews of movies give really dumb, even angry emotional reasons, so do people who enjoy some of these films as well. I really don't understand why, or think it's at all appropriate, that people are so emotional about film reviews, and opinions which differ from their own. I think the behavior on this message board is indicative of what is going wrong in America, and why the rest of the civilized World can't stand us American citizens. If by some miracle I were ever granted the opportunity to travel around the world, I would be embarrassed to admit I was born in the United States.

If the things in your life that get you really emotionally charged, so that you are blissful one moment, and psychotic the next, are films and the comments people make about them, then you truly live a very blessed life. There are people in our communities who can't afford to go to movies, watch cable television, and rent or buy DVDs. The things that get them ticked off, are how they are going to feed their kids, where is their next meal coming from, how will they put gasoline in the car, or buy a bus pass to get to work during the remainder of the month. For them, four paychecks in a two worker household, doesn't even leave money behind after the rent and utilities are paid for. That's a reason to get upset about. Film comments got you strung out, got you tweaking and spun? Count your abundant blessings then.

I totally agree with you that when people rate a review's "usefulness" they are really rating it based on whether they agree or disagree with the review.