Surely being ostracised by most of a community, which is the eventual result of being an asshat, has more of an effect on someone than some silly negative reputation points, I would think.Surely reaching a certain amount of negative reputation would lead to a eureka moment, when they realise what a pest they are. And we all know you have to acknowledge you have a problem before you can attempt to fix the problem.
The ones that have some hope of rehabilitation are the ones that we are trying to positively reinforce.
EDIT: We did come up with plans for a downvote modification, that would cause your post to disappear if enough people downvoted it. That would be an interesting experiment.


