I can remember when -23 points would be reserved for something like a string of racial epithets, not merely a lame but inoffensive attempt at humor.

It's okay, a little smack on the hand is just what I needed. I have no idea what's brought so many new users (I just came to find talent and advice for my startup), but as long as it's a temporary influx, the new users will settle down as they usually do. A short period of bad behavior from inexperienced users is just a growing pain for any healthy organization, and since the community (and Paul) have dealt with it so well, I have little fear that growth will turn Hacker News into Digg. For instance, I know now not to cheekily mock Paul in his own thread, and probably not to write a single thing after several black-and-tans.

That said, members who wish to preserve a community's original quality should be proactive. They may have to replace the functions of some other original members who have left. We call this "culture."

Well just to chime in as someone that has been here for quite a long time, a 'slap on the hands' (as far as I have witnessed) tends to be dropping a comment to -1 or so.

Piling on someone like that should be genuinely rare, and only because they are spamming links to goatse or streaming curse words at someone.

Hopefully this little portion of our 'culture' doesn't change, as it seems like a civil way to deal with this sort of thing.

As more people use the site the Karma swings are going to increase. He got a + 24 on the same thread so IMO it balances out.

Yes, but it once was the case that noise comments were given a single downvote and left alone by everyone else.

Negative numbers here are like a slap in the face, and when overused they will be even more corrosive to the community than a flood of juvenile comments would be.

More to the point, those scores are not supposed to be used to represent entertainment value, because people are not participating here for pure mindless entertainment.

I tend to down vote things that are at +50 karma and up vote stuff that get's really low unless they are extremely good or bad. However, think of it like a threading problem. If 30 people that think like I do see the comment at 10 and all up vote it it's going to hit 40 without updating it's value to those people.

Then maybe enough others like you will take notice a little later on and correct it. Just don't worry about how everyone else votes--they're not the ones you get to decide on.

more users -> more mods, whichever way