The goal in determining the value was so I could show whether the current user had liked a particular page. The @thing.has_evaluation?(:reputation_name, :source) was not working as it showed the page as "liked" even if a user liked, then disliked.
If anyone runs into this, you can delete an evaluation as the source level by calling the method delete_evaluation, then then a user's previous like/dislike/vote, etc is removed from the system and it's like they never voted.
Primarily helpful if you have a binary voting process