The policy I contemplate makes use of a general skill that I hypothesize that most participants on this site have: the ability to reserve judgment on someone till one has seen at least a dozen communications from that person and then to make a determination as to whether the person is worth continuing to pay attention to.

If you are basing your judgment on at least a dozen communications from the commenter, then, as I explained, you have already identified plenty of comments that should be downloaded. If you base your decision on seeing the 10 of the 12 observed comments are problems, then you can dock the bad commenter 10 points. And if you are right, you will not be the only one. You do not need to personally dock the user 20 or 30 points.

Whether this site lives or dies seems to depend on the frequency with which the people who can tell a worthwhile comment from a non-worthwhile comment bother to vote. But like I said, these people tend to be very busy.

If a person has excellent judgment to distinguish which comments should be up voted and which person should be down voted, but does not have the time to actually use that judgment, then that person is not going to be a successful protector of this site. Either take the time to do it right, or leave it to those who have the good judgment and the time, who there seems to be plenty of, giving that the system is working.