Just an attention getting opener... you can trust me. Implicitly. Send me all your pin numbers now.
Groucho Marx said, "I refuse to join any club that would accept me as a member". That's how I feel about now being an apparently Trusted User. I don't want it.
I don't want the power to hide rate people. While I understand the need to control trolls and such, the hide rating system seems to me about as functional as pouring sea water into nuclear plants. It works - somewhat - but the fallout is a killer.
Like many here I've been around the Innertubez since before the Web was even there, and some things don't change. Be it a newsgroup, a local BBS, or a shiny Web 2.0 social site, the dynamics don't change; you have the good Administrators, the bad Administrators, the groups that form around each, the Good Users, the troublemakers, and the trolls. No, it's not an easy thing to manage, and I realize there is no perfect solution.
As a programmer I have a theory that in my own mind is proven over and over (isn't it amazing how that works?) and it's this: Human social interaction CANNOT be adequately mapped onto a text-only medium. It's impossible. It will never happen, and it is actually DAMAGING to communication. Far too much of human interaction is nonverbal in nature. When all we have is text, we pour all our energy into the text, and inevitably noise is introduced. LOTS of noise. Someone misunderstands us, someone doesn't get the joke, someone takes offense.
And - most significant of all - someone constantly levels verbal grenades at someone they have never met in real life, because after all, it's just a screen name. Take mine for instance... some people see it as symbolic of all Texans and loose their pent-up rage at me. Which is ridiculous on the face of it; if I were a typical Texan, I promise you I wouldn't be here.
I do it, don't you? Someone ticks me off and some very clever part of my mind assembles a withering response that we deliver like a little verbal torpedo. It's just another video game, and we scored points. Whereas if we met the person in real life, chances are we'd quite like them.
I don't know about you but I HATE that about myself. Yes, I'm good. Piss me off and I can gen up a response that will take your breath away. But ten minutes later, I'm ashamed of myself.
So it is with hide rating. I don't WANT the power. I will be tempted to use it. I won't do so, but part of me will be tempted every time I see a trollish comment. I don't want to be in Administrator Mode here; I want to be in learning and sharing mode.
And the problem is, even though I think I will be able to control the impulse... the system is rotten to the core. Look how WRONG WRONG WRONG so many people were to hide rate diaries very recently that turned out to be spot on the truth. That's a problem.
I have no suggestions for a better system, even after all these years of interacting. If you remember my theory, my point is there IS no solution.
Trust me.