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In addition to my own suggestions, which I like... ahem... I support
Eric Dunn's suggestions, if they are technically feasible.
I especially like the 'helpful/not-helpful' rating button.
For posters, rather than messages, well think of the approval rating
system that eBay uses. You can step out of the "popularity contest"
by going to lurk mode for a while.
The suggestion for a mechanism for the community to vote "offences"
up and down in the relative scheme is also quite nifty.
Making it visible and public means that the people who have been
giving Eric Ray problems get to SEE that they are being boorish
-- or being interpreted that way -- before the whine-to-daddy
stage is reached.
Hands-on intervention by E.R. would diminish, because conflicts
would tend to not escalate that far.
I would keep the names of "down-with-you" voters invisible, so
as not to squelch whistle-blowing, but I would make visible the
names of those who exceeded a certain limit of nay-voting...
which (technical pipe-dream?) limit would be moved/re-set when they
praised somebody.
/kevin
> From: eric -dot- dunn -at- ca -dot- transport -dot- bombardier -dot- com
> So why not make policing
> the list democratic.
> Include a "Report this Post" link at the bottom of each post.
[...]
> Along with the 'Other' offenses entry, the web site could
> include a mechanism to
> submit new offenses and the vote the escalation or demotion
> of importance of
> offenses.
>
> Now this does raise the specter of the little fascists to
> rise and register
> EVERY last tiny offense. But, that is why I'd leave the human
> decision in
> whether to apply the sanctions or not and the reason that
> there be a reasonable
> threshold before the moderator is even informed of the
> reports. A given
> frequency of offense reporting could be made an offense in
> and of itself if need
> be. The sanitized statistics could make for an interesting
> Karma rating that
> could be consulted on the website as well. Include a
> helpful/not helpful rating
> in the mix and members could see if their posts were
> generating interest or not.
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