I like the ratings, and I like that we are a self-policing community. But what happens when one or a few of us become rogue cops?
I'm referring to posters rated trolls by others who lash out by throwing 1's at their "accusers." I don't want to name names, but the bill is coming due for some of them.
Here's my proposal: Take away rating privileges for anyone whose overall rating falls below 1.5 after a certain number of posts. That way, if someone is trolling around here, and being rated as such, he or she cannot sow additional confusion in ratings.
The danger of this course of action is that a majority could abuse the privilege of scoring and actually prevent minority voices from registering their complaints. But I don't think this is very likely at all. We've already had several discussions about appropriate scoring, and there are plenty of trusted users around here who get very angry when they see what they consider rating abuse. While I see every day evidence of people showering high ratings on views with which they agree, I haven't seen 1's and 0's that seemed aimed solely at opinions they don't share. And I check the ratings for most posts I encounter with low scores.
My preference would be that all posters here learn to support their claims with evidence--and to learn the difference between a criticism and a smear. But since I don't expect that to happen soon, I would like to protect worthy members of our community from ratings that are themselves no more than smears.