Sorry for the outage. The dKos server still has some misconfigurations that should be fixed next week. This is one I was able to fix myself, thankfully. But once the professionals give the server the necessary tune-up these outtages should gradually disappear.
Yesterday's Open Thread had a great deal of discussion about the ratings system. While some of you are calling for its scrapping, that won't happen. Things got ugly around these parts before the move to Scoop, and I don't want to go back to those days.
But I do agree that many of you are misusing the ratings system. Troll ratings should not be bandied about because you disagree with the poster. That's not the intent of the rating system. They should be given to posts that are completely devoid of content. Troll ratings should not be handed out because you think a commenter is stupid. Or an idiot. Or a Dean/Clark/Edwards supporter.
If this keeps up, I will eliminate ranking priviliges to all but a few people I myself can trust to hand out rankings properly. Personally, I would rather see the community step up and handle the responsibility collectively, but we can't have 1 and 0 ratings handed out for mere disagreements.
I have made some changes. I have made it more difficult to disappear a post. It now requires a rating significantly below "1" before posts are gone from the site. This will hopefully prevent a gang of, say, Dean supporters from drowning out a legitimate anti-Dean post.
Seriously guys, stay away from the 0s and 1s. Save them for the truly special ocassios when a real troll rears his ugly head. Be lavish with the 3s and 4s. It's always better to give rewards than mete out punishment.