Demerit Points
No this isn’t a post about the Police or the LTSA. It’s about how blog moderation will work. We’ve stolen the demerits concept from the Police.
If you get 100 or more demerits, then your right to drive post is suspended. Once the suspension is over, you go back to 0 points. Suspensions periods are as follows:
- 1st – 1 week
- 2nd – 2 weeks
- 3rd – 1 month
- 4th – 2 months
- 5th – 4 months
Now the demerits system allows us to distinguish between a minor offence, and say blatant disruption. Rather than have just a three strikes and you’re out system, this is more refined. The general guide to demerit points will be:
100 points – For highly defamatory comments
50 points – For grossly inflammatory comments with no redeeming quality
35 points – For blatant trolling, highly inflammatory comments
20 points – abusive language
10 points – posting off topic
5 points – For minor infractions, such as one inflammatory sentence in an otherwise good post
A moderator (or me) will edit a offending comment with a demerit score. If we collectively feel a moderator has been too harsh or lenient, we’ll all vote on it and assign an average score.
Now this system may be crap, and if so I’ll scrap it. But we’ll see how it goes. Don’t expect that we will become the language police and hand demerits out for every profanity or swear word. Generally the targetting will be done at the comments which are so over the top they scare other people off from commenting because they don’t want to get caught up into a flame war.
Also don’t post comments demanding that someone else’s comments be penalised. You’ll just get yourself penalised that way. Moderators will be following every thread – they don’t need you to point out a comment to them. If you really really feel the need to point something out, then do it via e-mail to me.
Also don’t get too offended if you cop a demerit. Think of it just like speeding. Most of the time a bit of speeding over the limit does no harm, but occasionally you’ll get pinged as a way of reminding people not to get too over the top.