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I think so. It would be a question of calibrating the negative amount so that it takes away the thin margins on which spammers operate, without allowing any serious impact or abuse from flag wars. Even -0.01 might be enough to deter spammers, who would quickly rack up dollars of debt. Whilst a flag war with far fewer posts would still be only be cents at worst.

It is at least worth an experiment isn't it?

Many people writing normal comments won't get out of debt. Imagine some minnows interacting on this social-network, they will lose money with each comment they are making to each other. Where this will lead?

Not under the (first) approach I put forward. Minnows won't have any debt. All comments start at zero. You will only build up a debt if you start getting a very large number of flagged comments. Minnows writing normal comments won't be affected.

That theory could possibly help a great deal and some help is better than no help.

@timcliff have you seen the idea posted by @minature-tiger? What would you say this would do on a broader scale (you know the code better than others.)