I've had remarkably similar ideas rolling around in my head for the past couple of years, watching various viral controversies work their way through Twitter, R

I've had remarkably similar ideas rolling around in my head for the past couple of years, watching various viral controversies work their way through Twitter, Reddit, and Wikipedia. I disagree with the idea of a "hate counter," though, because it would encourage people to self-segregate and I think it's wrong to reduce people to their worst attributes. Everyone has the potential to make a positive contribution in at least some niche. I would just add that my ideal system would have a plethora of highly objective, undeniable flags for a variety of potentially disruptive behaviors; posters would be required to disclaim or "pre-flag" their own posts; and readers would have the ability to toggle which flags they're willing to view at any given moment. The punishment for failing to disclaim a flag would be a period of probation (increasing with repeated violations) where the user's posts are automatically disclaimed for that flag. The punishment for malicious flagging, as judged by a group of users with a long history of proper use of a particular flag, would be probation with regard to the ability to use that flag on others' posts. I expect that the "off-topic" flag, along with the ability to rigorously define the topic in any given context, would get a lot of use, as would "name calling," "assigning motives or attributes to a group" (aka "broad brushing"), and "expressing incredulity" (aka the starting-your-comment-with-"Um..." flag).