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).
Please keep your suggestions programmatically very simple. There are all sorts of bright ideas we could be trying, but the actual strong filter by which only a very few are implemented is that programming resources for LW are very scarce and very expensive.
(This filter is so strong that it's the main reason why discussion of potential LW features didn't in-advance-to-me seem very publicky - most suggestions are too complicated, and the critical discussion is the one where SIAI/CFAR decides what we can actually afford to pay for. It hadn't occurred to me that anyone would dislike this particular measure, and I'll try to update more in that direction in the future.)
Do we really need another layer of verbal obfuscation, particularly of the cutesy variety?