query problem

[sabret00the]

been playing with this query for days and despite it working almost fine, it refuses to work really fine, it refuses to pull projects without a rating and i really need it to do that, can someone help me please as i dunno where i've gone wrong

PHP Code:

            // handles end user view options
             switch ($view) 
             { 
                 case "latest":
                     $group = "GROUP BY project_rate.projectid";
                     $order = "ORDER BY project_rate.projectid DESC";
                     $limit = "LIMIT 10";
                 break;
                 case "random":
                     $group = "GROUP BY project_rate.projectid";
                     $order = "ORDER BY RAND(project_rate.projectid)";
                 break; 
                 case "votes":
                     $group = "GROUP BY project_rate.rate";
                     $order = "ORDER BY project_rate.rate DESC, project_rate.projectid DESC";
                 break;  
                 default:
                     $group = "GROUP BY project_rate.projectid";
                     $order = "ORDER BY project_rate.projectid DESC";
                     $limit = "LIMIT " . ($minlimit-1) . ", $perpage"; 
             }
 
 
 
             // extracts projects for main project page
             $projects = $DB_site->query("
                 SELECT COUNT(*) AS votes, project_rate.projectid,
                 projects.text, project_rate.rate, projects.timestamp,
                 user.username
                 FROM project_rate
                 LEFT JOIN projects ON (project_rate.projectid = projects.projectid)
                 LEFT JOIN user ON (user.userid = projects.userid)
                 $clause
                 $group
                 $order
                 $limit 
             ");