Hey trolls, tone it down.

[Giant Saguaro]

I'm not here all THAT much, so whatever is decided upon to deal with trolls is fine with me, but I'd just make an observation. It's a message board phenomenon of sorts that trolls always attract attention and posts. I don't know why. I can read the crap posted by Bandit, Nomo, etc. and laugh at it and keep going because even if they are serious, there's no sense in trying to reason with those people. Occasionally I'd leave a comment, but they're not worth getting worked up over. On other boards, I've seen good, thoughtful posters get so worked up over arguing with trolls that they burn out and quit the board or whatever. I don't know why they argue with them or get that upset.

The other thing, if we're going to be able to assign negative karma to people, then we're going to have to not take stuff so personal and be very judicious about doing it. We're all opinionated, there's an election coming up, it's an emotional one, most all of the people on here are partisan in one way or another, so we're going to have to resist taking offense to everything.

If somebody gets offended by something you didn't intend to be offensive and it's accompanied by thoughtful analysis, then tough. Offer a rebuttal, an agreement, or keep going. That's all I really have to say about this and I've probably said too much already.  

[Giant Saguaro]

Oh wow, I've been granted Karma Power. I appreciate being entrusted with the capacity to assess the posts of other folks on the board. As a former college teacher, I've assessed students of varying points of view and from all backgrounds and I will be exceedingly fair. I'll assign a minus for the rare, nasty cases where someone is spamming, threatening, or being insulting on purpose, etc. (basically for what others have said they will assign minuses for). Likewise, a plus will go to anyone who contributes something positive or useful to the forum and not because I may agree with them.

I was never a hard grader, but I wasn't an easy one either - I have to be impressed or thoroughly repulsed for the A or F, respectively.