The recent implementation of a -5 karma penalty for replying to comments that are at -3 or below has clearly met with some disagreement and controversy. See http://lesswrong.com/r/discussion/lw/eb9/meta_karma_for_last_30_days/7aon . However, at the same time, it seems that Eliezer's observation that trolling and related problems have over time gotten worse here may be correct. It may be that this an inevitable consequence of growth, but it may be that it can be handled or reduced with some solution or set of solutions. I'm starting this discussion thread for people to propose possible solutions. To minimize anchoring bias and related problems, I'm not going to include my ideas in this header but in a comment below. People should think about the problem before reading proposed solutions (again to minimize anchoring issues).
Problem:
Karma inflation due to more users means old articles aren't as up voted as they should. Also because they are old they don't get read or updated as much as they should. We tried to at least correct people not reading the sequence with reruns. It didn't exactly work.
Idea:
Currently karma earned from posting a Main article is boosted by a factor of 10. Lets boost the value of karma by a factor of 2 or some other low value for any new comments on articles older than 2 years.
I liked this idea until I realized I only liked it because I've been around longer than lukeprog.