Announcements

Obviously, getting rid of the threat of suspension takes away a big incentive against bad behavior. So yes, there are going to be some anti-social people who take this as an opportunity to be even more anti-social. We know that, and that is why we qualified this change by explicitly stating we reserve the right to reverse it.

I would point out that DU3 had the jury system for a full two years before we created the five-hides-and-your-out feature, so running the jury system without the 5-hides function is not without precedent. And I would also point out that on DU2 we never had any automatic suspension function, and people thought that was ok at the time.

The reason we have decided to try this is pretty straightforward. As I said in my OP, I think that there are times when jurors are evaluating behavior and they know it is disruptive, but they cannot bring themselves to hide it because they don't want to see someone they like getting suspended from the site. There is no doubt in my mind that this effect exists, and is exacerbated by the partisanship that infects this place during primary season. Our hope -- and I admit it is only a hope -- is that getting rid of the five hides feature will tip the scales somewhat so jurors are more likely to hold THEIR FRIENDS and THEIR FELLOW PARTISANS accountable for their bad behavior.

If people are more likely to hide bad behavior, and if bad behavior gets hidden more reliably and consistently by juries, then our hope is that overall the tone of the site will seem to improve. And if people perceive that the tone is better they will improve their own tone. Now that the admins are removing jurors who vote to allow the worst behavior, in theory the juries should become less tolerant of bad behavior over time.

The bottom line is that we make no guarantees on this. If letting people back makes the site worse then we can easily put the 5-hides feature back.