I think the point system has done some good, but I would like to have the ability to see who voted and how on everyone's posts.
If I step over a line, the negs are a pretty quick feedback indicating such. But often times some posts are negged for absolutely no reason.
I also find it disheartening that while I have tried to improve my behavior to be more polite and limit posts that are simple one liners, some of the post whores on here who have accumulated massive amounts of points feel no need to do likewise.
Certain posters with large point totals have no qualms about tossing around flames and calling people rude names. It's rather unpleasant to be talking about football and then to have to suffer through incessant PERSONAL attacks.
I think they behave this way because they sense little threat of punishment. And they have circle jerkers that follow their lead and anonymously neg bang for the fun of it.
So I suggest two possible solutions that might not be feasible in the near term but I would hope could be implemented someday.
1. Allow Brian or some other mods to hand out 4 hour posting suspensions. Or this could be an automatic result of a specified level of down votes. This would allow the violator some time to rethink what they wrote or calm down from an emotional high following a game. It's not a permanent ban, but a way of really hitting the post whores where it hurts.
2. Allow everyone to see how everyone votes. This way we could see if one fellow with 22 points was going around and negging everything from a fellow member for no reason. This would also help prevent the use of sock puppets and would allow for retaliation against such silly behavior. If one person goes on a vendetta (which I've been tempted to do) it would be visible to others and could be punished accordingly. Plus it's good to be able to confront people who neg you so that you can understand their point of view by having direct discussions with them and improve your future posts.
well, what do you guys think?