It may well be true that most of the spam is coming in when I am asleep ... in which case I for one am most-grateful to those of you out there who laboriously “deal with it.”
If we are going to come up with some “user-response based” treatment for spam, then I definitely think that this response should include at least these three features:
- Get rid of Anonymous Monk. Maybe there are those who think that the ability to comment and to vote anonymously is a fabulous freedom, but this is the only forum-site that I am aware of which allows it. It lets someone lurk around the corner and shoot spitballs.
- Expand the idea of “up/down voting” (and “consideration”) to include categorized reasons. A mere number does not say diddly-squat. Whereas ratings or tags, which can be tabulated, could be very useful indeed, even for years to come.
- Consider the utility of allowing the votes of certain users to count many-times more than others. For instance, Popes such as yourself could nary-well be gods. Perhaps even with the power to permanently excommunicate pesky fellow Monks with whom Your Eminences simply do not see eye-to-eye? (It occurs to me that this thought might have for you a certain appeal ...)