Spam Prevention Proposal: Reputation Based Posting Limits

While many Steemians do their best to contribute to the Steem platform, there are some who run spam accounts with the sole intent on spamming comments and posts in an attempt to make money (a thousand cents makes a dollar).

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Currently, we can flag a user, and when their reputation dips their content by default is hidden from view. This doesn't really stop some of the spammers I've seen who continue to spam even when their reputation hits zero. The bible spam comments I occasionally get are especially annoying.

Having a low reputation score on Steem means nothing really, it's purely cosmetic. Your right to post and continue to clog up the blockchain with your trash is never prevented, anyone regardless of reputation can post (that also includes comments).

Reputation posting limits

I think when you reach a certain number of flags, your ability to post should seriously be hampered. A great example of a reporting system which punishes users for various offences is Valve Software's game Dota 2.

In Dota 2 if a user abandons (quits a game timing out or intentionally) too many times, they're temporarily banned from participating in ranked games for a little while. If a user is abusive over chat in a game, they can find themselves being reported by other players and unable to participate in text chat for weeks.

If you're abusive and disruptive in public chat you can similarly find yourself being temporarily banned from speaking in any public chat channels.

I think something similar for Steem is absolutely needed. How you would implement it, I am not entirely sure of the specifics, but surely at the time of posting checking the user's reputation could be a good starting point.

Starting off, if you're a new user at 25 reputation, maybe you get to initially publish 4 posts per day. As your reputation and account age grows, you get to post more per day.

And while some might see limiting what can be posted based on your reputation as a bad thing, when you knowingly have a limited number of posts you can publish, the quality might actually go up because you'll be incentivised to only publish high-quality content.

Or if limiting the ability to post content isn't favourable, at the very least, a flag system that penalises constantly flagged accounts leaving spam comments on any post they can (usually through automated bot scripts).

Clearly, there are things I have not considered and it's more of an idea requiring further discussion, but essentially it comes down to the following:

• Low, highly flagged users on Steem need to be disincentivised
• Your ability to post on Steem should be limited if you're constantly being a shithead
• Constant comment abusers should be punished (temporary comment bans, or ability to post comments is reduced)

Thoughts?