Well, the warning system as it is now was made so because of technical considerations as well as practical ones (in the sense of how I wanted it to work). The warning system itself is a hack that was made by someone a while back for an older release of vBulletin. I asked my programmer to incorporate this hack into my copy here of vBulletin, then when I upgraded to a newer version (but not the NEWEST), he had to extensively modify the code to fit. This latest change was a further hack of a hack, in that he modified it further to accommodate some specs I presented to him in how I wanted it to work for the current iteration.
There were compromises, of course, that were necessary based on how the old code worked and how extensive new modifications would need to be in order to make it work in certain ways I had requested. The original code already had the facility to ban a person automatically when they reach a certain point level. I wanted that to be a fine and suspension whereby the member would get an email concerning the suspension plus a way to pay the fine through PayPal. All of this would be transparent to me and not require any manual intervention for it to work. If you recall, at one time I maintained a thread that showed all members who had been fined and suspended. This was getting to be a real pain in the butt. I felt that when I cracked down on the abuses here, it would get MUCH worse, so automating this process was one of the top priorities.
BTW, this is why the original email sent said "ban" rather then "suspended". Quite frankly, I just never noticed the wording simply because I don't get a copy of that email sent, so I had never actually read one.
Now the problem is that there were a couple of ways to do things.
(1) When someone reached the suspension limit, the automated suspension would kick in and they would be suspended until the fine is paid and the system would then automatically lift the suspension. At that time the warning points would be cleared and then the member would be starting with a clean slate with zero warning points on their record.
(2) As above, when the fine was paid, the warning points would NOT be cleared, which would then jeopardize the member with the fact that any even minor 1 point infraction would kick the fine and suspension into gear from that infraction.
I had to choose one of those two scenarios. In #1, I felt the major drawback there was that there would then be no history available for warning points assessed to members. This concerned me, because one of the strengths of the present system is that it gave everyone an easily viewable audit trail of what myself and the moderators are doing here to enforce the rules. When someone claims that so-and-so had been unfairly placing warning points against a particular member, it is a simple matter for me to look into it (and anyone else as well) to review the posts that got the warning points, and therefore determine the truth of that allegation. I felt this would be an adequate safeguard against any moderator (or myself as well) going off the deep end and not being accountable for it other then by hearsay. So quite honestly, I really did not want to give this up.
Yet #2 has issues as well. Is it fair that someone who has 9 points already on their record to get fined and suspended for something minor, such as putting 5 lines within their signature area or putting in an animated avatar? Why no, it is not. But on the other hand, is someone with over 50 points and who should obviously be rather conversant with the rules around here, really just making a mistake, or are they just trying to see how far they can push the limits with yet another offense, even minor?
Yes, perhaps I could have paid my programmer more money to further hack the system to make it perfect (if such a thing is really possible), but with all things considered, I felt that the compromise would have to do until I felt it worthwhile to address the shortcomings sometime in the future. For now, the sharp rap on the knuckles seemed the only way to get peoples' attention, even if some aspects it are notably unfair.
As for the trader ratings and GGC polls, only paid members can vote on them. This was done simply because to do otherwise would have been foolish on my part. If it were otherwise, anyone at all could register 100 times with bogus member IDs and skew the ratings or polls however they wished. This could be done either to slam someone they didn't like, or to give false pats on the back to someone they liked.
As for the karma system, to be honest I just don't remember what restrictions are in place there. I think there was an issue with people posting negative karma (or "reputation" at that time), that I needed to restrict, but I am not positive what I may have done.
There were compromises, of course, that were necessary based on how the old code worked and how extensive new modifications would need to be in order to make it work in certain ways I had requested. The original code already had the facility to ban a person automatically when they reach a certain point level. I wanted that to be a fine and suspension whereby the member would get an email concerning the suspension plus a way to pay the fine through PayPal. All of this would be transparent to me and not require any manual intervention for it to work. If you recall, at one time I maintained a thread that showed all members who had been fined and suspended. This was getting to be a real pain in the butt. I felt that when I cracked down on the abuses here, it would get MUCH worse, so automating this process was one of the top priorities.
BTW, this is why the original email sent said "ban" rather then "suspended". Quite frankly, I just never noticed the wording simply because I don't get a copy of that email sent, so I had never actually read one.
Now the problem is that there were a couple of ways to do things.
(1) When someone reached the suspension limit, the automated suspension would kick in and they would be suspended until the fine is paid and the system would then automatically lift the suspension. At that time the warning points would be cleared and then the member would be starting with a clean slate with zero warning points on their record.
(2) As above, when the fine was paid, the warning points would NOT be cleared, which would then jeopardize the member with the fact that any even minor 1 point infraction would kick the fine and suspension into gear from that infraction.
I had to choose one of those two scenarios. In #1, I felt the major drawback there was that there would then be no history available for warning points assessed to members. This concerned me, because one of the strengths of the present system is that it gave everyone an easily viewable audit trail of what myself and the moderators are doing here to enforce the rules. When someone claims that so-and-so had been unfairly placing warning points against a particular member, it is a simple matter for me to look into it (and anyone else as well) to review the posts that got the warning points, and therefore determine the truth of that allegation. I felt this would be an adequate safeguard against any moderator (or myself as well) going off the deep end and not being accountable for it other then by hearsay. So quite honestly, I really did not want to give this up.
Yet #2 has issues as well. Is it fair that someone who has 9 points already on their record to get fined and suspended for something minor, such as putting 5 lines within their signature area or putting in an animated avatar? Why no, it is not. But on the other hand, is someone with over 50 points and who should obviously be rather conversant with the rules around here, really just making a mistake, or are they just trying to see how far they can push the limits with yet another offense, even minor?
Yes, perhaps I could have paid my programmer more money to further hack the system to make it perfect (if such a thing is really possible), but with all things considered, I felt that the compromise would have to do until I felt it worthwhile to address the shortcomings sometime in the future. For now, the sharp rap on the knuckles seemed the only way to get peoples' attention, even if some aspects it are notably unfair.
As for the trader ratings and GGC polls, only paid members can vote on them. This was done simply because to do otherwise would have been foolish on my part. If it were otherwise, anyone at all could register 100 times with bogus member IDs and skew the ratings or polls however they wished. This could be done either to slam someone they didn't like, or to give false pats on the back to someone they liked.
As for the karma system, to be honest I just don't remember what restrictions are in place there. I think there was an issue with people posting negative karma (or "reputation" at that time), that I needed to restrict, but I am not positive what I may have done.
I guess if Rich is seeing
