Since the main problem with trolling is drowning out of recent comments
I agree that if I try to extract coherent beliefs from Eliezer's claim, particularly the claim that people are fleeing the invisible threads, this is what I must conclude.
But I'm not sure I should try to extract coherent beliefs from Eliezer's claims. Do you directly claim this? Do you agree with his claim that trolling has increased in recent months? Do you think invisible comments are a good proxy for trolls?
I stopped looking at recent comments long ago for reasons of volume. I think it keeps large threads going. But I think large threads tend to be equally worthless, regardless of average karma or karma of the initial comment.
I guess that I agree with Eliezer that the signal to noise ratio is not as good as it used to be, at least not as good as when I first joined here. But I'm not that highly active a user, and my karma is only around 9000, so my impression may not be that important in this context.
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).