[Cloverfield]

It seems like I've opened up a can of worms. That's why I wasn't sure if such a system would work here ... as it was designed to be used on a forum which is a lot busier and a lot more active members than this one. When a forum is larger, generally you need to impliment such in order to prevent chaos.

Both systems have their pros and cons. And with both systems, I believe that the moderator has to make his/her judgement on what they deem to be a warnable offense. At ACF, people do get away with a bit of spam and one liners, we don't exactly go around issuing a 1 point warning for every second post we see. We just have to make our judgements. Often, when we see that the member will have been spamming a few times, the warning will be given. But if they are a known member and don't usually cause problems, then we'll let it drop. This kind of incorporates SeaRex's suggestion. So as you can see, a warning system isn't as cut and dry as you spam, you get a warning, etc.

Of course there are also exceptions to the system in the way of banning/suspension. Something like this would be a member who joined with the intent to flame and/or cause problems.

When you look at it though, the system isn't too different to the current system. We already have a system of three warnings = suspension, then ban, etc. The only difference with the suggestion is that it is scaled. Therefore something harsh is worth more points than something like a double post.

The last thing I want to do is to make people feel like they can't voice their opinions. Far from it. I think what we really need to cut down on is just the nasty comments. So for example, you could criticise someone, but as long as you aren't flaming them [i.e. saying it in a nasty or degoratory way], then it's fine. The same goes for where Jacob expressed concern about how he sometimes uses racist comments. I think we are all mature enough to accept such comments in the way of normal conversation. But the comments I was more referring to in my example was where someone made a racist comment for the sole reason of flaming another person. How to say this right ... but Jacob's comments often have a more light hearted approach to them, like when he refers to muffies for example.

Of course the other option is what Max refers to ... which is the deletion of a post if it is of a questionable manner. However we had done this in the past and we got people complaining about topics being closed and posts deleted.

As for a "spam" forum. Well, we have one of those on ACF as well. It's generally used to house crap topics that we luckily don't get much of on here. Things like the person above you thread, rate the avatar above you, party thread, hell ... the list goes on. It actually does work quite well on that forum, but I really don't think a small forum like OWF needs something like that. I think they are more suited to larger forums or forums that consist of many sub-forums so it evens out the spam with the discussion areas.

Abe Babe...