Why can't we be friends?

[Spartan 279]

SkullCandy and Spase thank you for stopping by (imagine a low bow). After gluing my fingers together and building three left handplates (two trash and third time is the charm) I have the utmost respect for all of you. Honestly, the work you all have done is quite extraordinary. After a few days of sniffing around and reading, I'm making my first set of armor (well I got some paper cut out and glued together Clearly there is an awful lot right about this community. It is easy to focus on a problem.

A few points for consideration?:
A bit has been said about rating. I am a member of another site and every post is rated - slashdot.org. Live moderators rate every post both for the type of rating such as "Insightful", "Troll", "Informative", etc. Each post also gets a rating number from 1 to 5. This system requires live moderators who look at every post. It works and members can set their threshold so they don't see the low rated posts by default. I don't know if there are enough moderators or if that would work here, but maybe it'll spur some thoughts.

Could there be control on the PM service? A user could simply turn receiving PM's off entirely. Like when you have enough help requests for a while or only accept PM's from selected members.

Finally, the mentoring idea looks great to me. When a new user signs up, they are a "recruit". They can only PM their mentor. They can read, but cannot post anywhere. When the mentor has them up to building a few pieces (or whatever makes sense) they get promoted to "private". The private has the same rights as a new member (like me.) If anyone misbehaves, they get busted down. If there are no mentors available, enrollment is effectively closed.

You get a lot from this mentoring strategy - control of PM, "on-boarding" of new members, and regulation of the amount of new members joining based on available staff to cover the load.

Thatis one helluva idea
me likey xD