Reporting Posts

[Fusion]

Agree with Hurricane. Bun should have been banned within about 2 weeks of signing up. He was toxic. I reported him, nothing happened. In the end, I ignored him.

And do you know what. In order to ignore him, I basically had to ignore the whole of Cricket Chat. I watched the first session of pretty much every day of the Eng vs. India series and whilst I did post, I did so sparingly as the threads were utter tripe.

Frankly, whether Bun is a multi or not is irrelevant. He should have been banned as a simple honest-to-goodness troll LONG before now. The multi thing is a total red herring as far as I'm concerned.

You may it sound like that all he did was troll from the very first post he made. Like all he was posting was: "Australia and England are lozers. Lol. And oh by the way, I'm a multi of Sir Alex!! Lol". What has developed with Bun is a myth that he was a troll from the start and EVERYONE knew he was a multi from the moment he joined. That's just not the case.

Bun joined CW on 12-10-2010. I went back and browsed his first 200 posts that he made in the course of about 2 months (till the end of 2010). Keeping in mind that he was a brand new user to us, I don't see anything that would scream "give him a perma!". In fact, here's the kicker: As far as I can tell, the first reported post we got on him (Bun) was by you (Heath) on 2-4-2011. By then, Bun has made 500+ posts for sure (probably close to 1000, but I couldn't get the search results to display properly to validate). So to reiterate, Bun joins the forum and makes 500+ posts before someone reports him to us for trolling. Hardly trolling from the very first post and deserving of getting banned after "about 2 weeks of signing up".

Now I want to address your reported posts specifically, since you asked about them. You reported him twice on 2-4-2011 for trolling. Again, as far as I can tell, those are the first 2 reported posts on Bun that we ever received. Bun received a warning infraction from us as a result of those posts. Since he only had one infraction prior to this (given by a moderator on his own for insulting another member), I hope you would agree that it wouldn't have been fair to outright perma ban him on the basis of just those 2 reported posts by you.

You next reported him on 4-7-2011 for abusing another member. That post, combined with another one reported by a different member, earned Bun his first non-warning infraction. Only 4 posts of his have been reported to us for trolling/baiting up to this point, the rest are for text speak. He now has 5 infraction points, not enough for a ban. You reported one more post of his on 30-4-2011 for abusing another member. The consensus opinion from the mod team was that it wasn't clear whether he was abusing a member, or just commenting on the OP's article. Hence no action was taken in this case. This was the last reported post by you on Bun. 4 total, of which 3 resulted in direct action by the mods. I get your point that you didn't know action was taken on your reported posts and that's very frustrating. I just don't know an easy way to solve that. The best I can offer, as suggested by Flem and some other mods, is that if you email us about a resolution to your reported posts, we'll try our best to get back to you. If EVERYONE expected us to respond to their reported posts, it would probably not be workable as we get a lot of reported posts (specially during high profile series). However, if it's just a few emails here and there, then we can certainly accommodate a response.

Lastly, as you can see from the above, Bun was certainly not a troll from the start. People weren't constantly reporting him to us during his few months on the forum. In my mind, it would not have been fair to simply ban him as soon as we got those first few reported posts on him. Realize that while hardly anyone is reporting him for trolling, there was a full-fledged campaign underway that he's a multi. We've already established by now that we won't ban someone for being a multi without sufficient proof. So here we have no proof that he's a multi and he hasn't trolled enough to be banned permanently. What were we to do? That's why we kept asking people to stop the multi accusation crusade and instead report him when he does troll. Instead, people were targeting and insulting him preemptively and making it nearly impossible for us to ban him.

 

[honestbharani]

Damn... this mod gig is tough.. I hope people realize that while we (the normal posters) are just taking time out of our lives to talk about something we all like (cricket), these guys are taking time off their lives to ensure those who do talk cricket here do so within reason and try to create a decent atmosphere where we can enjoying talking about cricket.. And this they do taking time off writing about something they love as well (cricket)... At least we can cut them "some" slack?

 

[Prince EWS]

Bit of a thread hop here (I think I've said my bit) - but I've just noticed Blaze 18 was brought up.

Now, he was suspected of being this person's multi for a long time before he was caught for good, and it wasn't because people didn't like him - if anything, Blaze 18 was this person's special account for when he wanted to be reasonable. He was suspected because, such as I understand it, he was the only one for whom there was genuine evidence.

I won't name names, but said evidence (I'm told) came from within the mod forum itself, the existence of which soon became widely known. My question is:

1. Why wasn't this enough evidence to ban him?

2. Doesn't this mean there is a distinction between having any evidence and enough evidence for a ban - therefore when mods are saying that mere suspicion isn't enough for a ban, their meaning is actually that slim evidence isn't enough for a ban?

Haha, I love this post.

 

[Howe_zat]

Haha, I love this post.

...?

 

[HeathDavisSpeed]

You may it sound like that all....

Thanks for that, Fusion. It certainly puts some of it in context. What I would say is that I would have reported him considerably more if I didn't think that reporting him was an exercise in futility and frustration. If I'd heard back that my reports had been taken seriously, then there was plenty more besides that I could have reported. Maybe that's a failing of my own, but in the end I took the 'moderator recommended action' of ignoring him; which meant pretty much ignoring Cricket Chat.

The fact he made it to 500-odd posts without attracting any other reports either suggests he was a better poster, or less obvious at the start, or that other people are similarly underwhelmed by the reporting process and weren't bothering to report him. I recall getting particularly annoyed by some of his posts and that he seemingly got away with pretty direct trolling (and as I've said before, I had no view on his status as a multi)

As an aside, does anyone remember a particularly obnoxious posted called "Benaud". Any chance he was a multi? He seemed to know a lot about a lot of posters here.

 

[Flem274*]

I think I remember the one you mean, but I have a (probably incomplete) list of Precam multis lying around somewhere and I don't recall him being on it.

 

[Prince EWS]

Anyway, moving away from moderation team forum politics that I'm not supposed to talk about now...

This thread, like all the others that invariably end up about this topic, frustrates me greatly. There are some great posts from members outlining potential changes to the system relating to how we deal with members who are a net loss to the forum, but they always gets lost in a sea of circular arguments from both sides relating to the detection and banning of multiple accounts.

Frankly, we're not going our policy on multiple accounts. We'll remove them when we have sufficient evidence of them, and while we're always striving to find new evidence, particularly in cases where a member is suspected by the wider community, we're not going to drop our standard there. You can scream about how you think someone is someone else until you're blue in the face but all it will do is detract from the real issues that your opinion can actually make a difference on.

If I may speak openly, I've long wanted a little more discretion when it came to giving out long-term bans to members who were at a net loss to the forum for forum atmosphere reasons. This is an opinion that is in contrast to some of the other mods, but I think this potential policy change is something we should be able to discuss on the forum, with members and mods alike giving their opinions, without it turning into a witch-hunt for multis or an excuse for people to start calling out people they don't like under the guise of example and getting the thread closed. Heath, even in greatly criticising the mod team, actually made some great posts in this thread about the forum atmosphere and how moderators could improve it by canning obviously trollish and/or plain-out poor posters. Unfortunately, Heath's posts, much like the reports he made, have been a minority in actually addressing the issue that member opinion has a lot of weight in. We'd need a little more trust and discretion but we could raise the standard of cricket discussion on this forum quite sharply with a couple of select bannings IMO. I've seen some indications in this thread that it's precisely what the members want but again, it's being muddied in the sea of multi crap.

Do not group our handling of alleged multis and trolls under the same banner because one can be changed with sufficient member support and one can't. If all we're hearing about a member is "multi multi multi multi" then we're not going to do anything until we actually *gasp* prove it's a multi. If we're getting regular complaints about a member's overall posting style that we don't believe have been influenced by the belief that he's someone else then that's something else entirely, particularly if we adjust our policy a little to proactively weed out the bad eggs.

 

[grecian]

Hmm, seems a slightly arse-about-face argument, we're told to ignore obvious trolls, particually the new posters, which I try to do. Yet now we're told if you didn't make a report from the get-go, the troll was quite right to carry on. Most of us thought Bun was not conducive to forum atmosphere, from the start, but we were hoping mods would realize this from the start.

So do you want reports from the second someone arrives or do you want us to wait? StillI will maintain that thousands of posts should be enough.

 

[Prince EWS]

Hmm, seems a slightly arse-about-face argument, we're told to ignore obvious trolls, particually the new posters, which I try to do. Yet now we're told if you didn't make a report from the get-go, the troll was quite right to carry on. Most of us thought Bun was not conducive to forum atmosphere, from the start, but we were hoping mods would realize this from the start.

So do you want reports from the second someone arrives or do you want us to wait? StillI will maintain that thousands of posts should be enough.

Just to clarify, is that a reply to my post? Because I didn't make any references to the timing of reported posts there.

 

[grecian]

Just to clarify, is that a reply to my post? Because I didn't make any references to the timing of reported posts there.

No it was a rubbish reply to Fusion's post

 

[Fusion]

Most of us thought Bun was not conducive to forum atmosphere, from the start, but we were hoping mods would realize this from the start.

So do you want reports from the second someone arrives or do you want us to wait? StillI will maintain that thousands of posts should be enough.

You thought Bun was not conductive to forum atmosphere from the start? Based on what? I want solid reasoning here, not a reliance on faulty memory. As I pointed out in my reply to Heath, I went through his first 200 or so posts and I don't see anything to indicate a permanent ban. You're welcome to prove me wrong by browsing his posts yourself. It's a myth that Bun was a troll from the beginning and that we ignored his trollish behavior. When members like Heath reported him (as opposed to others that just went on and on about the multi crusade), we took action as necessary.

 

[grecian]

You thought Bun was not conductive to forum atmosphere from the start? Based on what? I want solid reasoning here, not a reliance on faulty memory. As I pointed out in my reply to Heath, I went through his first 200 or so posts and I don't see anything to indicate a permanent ban. You're welcome to prove me wrong by browsing his posts yourself. It's a myth that Bun was a troll from the beginning and that we ignored his trollish behavior. When members like Heath reported him (as opposed to others that just went on and on about the multi crusade), we took action as necessary.

Oh you want proof, well I want proof he wasn't. C'mon mate this is a fatuous argument, Even if he was impeccable for a 1000 posts,which he wasn't, he clearly wasn't afterwards, he was just a poor poster who needed banning, and as Heath said we've lost faith in reporting, as it doesn't seem to make any difference. Even Cevno said he was subtly trolloing.

Your not replying to my point, and you seem to just be angry at me, we don't think the guy was a valid poster here, and we didn't report him, because we thought it wouldn't make a blind bit of difference, and did it?

He got a week ban, he then flaunted that he got Gimp banned for longer, really not sure this is decisive action.

Oh, and I never said he was a multi, actually, just thought he was poor.

 

[Fusion]

Oh you want proof, well I want proof he wasn't. C'mon mate this is a fatuous argument, Even if he was impeccable for a 1000 posts,which he wasn't, he clearly wasn't afterwards, he was just a poor poster who needed banning, and as Heath said we've lost faith in reporting, as it doesn't seem to make any difference. Even Cevno said he was subtly trolloing.

Your not replying to my point, and you seem to just be angry at me, we don't think the guy was a valid poster here, and we didn't report him, because we thought it wouldn't make a blind bit of difference, and did it?

He got a week ban, he then flaunted that he got Gimp banned for longer, really not sure this is decisive action.

Oh, and I never said he was a multi, actually, just thought he was poor.

Your argument seems to be that he was a troll from the start and no action was taken against him. Well I've demonstrated that he wasn't a troll from the start and hardly anyone called him out as a troll either. I've also pointed out that in the rare cases when he was reported for trolling, we did take action. The mods can't read every post in every thread, so yes we do rely on the members to point out trollish posts to us.

As for your contention that you and others didn't report him because you didn't think it would make a difference, well I obviously disagree. Not to sound like a broken record, but we did infract Bun when he trolled. However, most of the noise around him was about the multi accusation, not that he was a troll (not saying that no one accused him of being a troll, but rather that the large majority of complaints were about the multi aspect).

Now there's obviously a trust deficit here between some members and the mods in regards to our policy toward trolling. It's something that the mods are constantly striving to improve. What I would plead for is a little bit of understanding and patience. If we disagree with you on a particular case, it doesn't mean we're biased or that we ignore your sentiments. We have a fairly diverse set of moderators on the team. We deliberate everything as a group. This diverse group makeup ensures (IMO) that we look at all aspects and perspectives when handing out infractions/bans. There's no room for bias within this group. I think by and large, we arrive at a fair conclusion when handling trolls. There's always room for improvement, and threads like these often cause us to improve/modify our moderation policies and their implementation. As PEWS mentioned, there are some good suggestions in this thread that we will certainly discuss as a mod team.

 

[Furball]

*snip*

It's a tricky one when it comes to Precam though, because he's been such a malignant influence on forum atmosphere in so many ways. As soon as people start to suspect that Bun, or Blaze, or whoever, is a Precam multi then that already begins to affect the forum atmosphere, and that's an impossibly tough position for the moderators to deal with, because we might be wrong, and the poster being accused might just be Random Singh from India who has no connection to Precam but is affecting the forum atmosphere through no fault of their own. Another huge problem though, is that most of the posters that have been strongly suspected of being Precam, that I can think of anyway, have all ended up being banned for being Precam multis. So usually, when the community gets up in arms and starts shouting "multi!", they're not wrong. How you deal with that problem I have no answers for.

Anyway, since this post wasn't meant to be about multis, I'll address the forum atmosphere point. When I was a mod I felt that we as a team were far too adverse to handing out bans when they were justified - it took absolutely ages for someone like WindieWeathers to get a lengthy ban, for instance, - and it's something which is still apparent. Unless the mod team had had a change of heart, Bun would have returned from his 1 week ban for trolling and would be free to post his usual victim crap and "I'm fed up with this place, I'm leaving" flounce, and this thread would have shut long ago amid the inevitable ****storm it would have caused. I tried to address the forum atmosphere issue and was told "we're not going to ban members because they're unpopular." Well, isn't the fact that Bun was wildly unpopular amongst pretty much an entire cross section of the community, including well respected members, former moderators, former staff members, and current staff members, surely an indication that he was harming the forum atmosphere? Sure, we could all put him on ignore, but half the forum putting a poster on the ignore list isn't the correct solution - when that needs to happen it is clear where the problem lies and what the solution is. Granted, certain posters didn't like Bun because they felt he was a Precam multi - the fact that Bun has been proven to be a Precam multi changes nothing in terms of whether I think he deserved to be canned for a long time.

And it's not like the mods have been scared to hand out bans related to forum atmosphere - my ban email contained the line "GingerFurball, you've been a downer on the forum atmosphere for a while now", there was at least one member of the mod team that felt that I was the worst offender in terms of bringing down the forum atmosphere, and James' announcement of Corrin's ban contains the phrase "Since he continued to break the rules and post in a manner that was extremely detrimental to the forum atmosphere, we had no choice but to apply the infractions that have banned him for 6 months." Now before anyone reads this wrong, I'm not arguing that the bans that Corrin or myself received were unjustified, my point is that forum atmosphere played a part in the two of us being given extended breaks from the site. So you're not scared to do it. But for some reason the "forum atmosphere" clause isn't used at times when it's quite clear it should be used.

One other thing about trolling in particular - people who dangle the bait and people who take the bite seem to be treated as one and the same. This doesn't seem right. If I dangle some bait in front of some posters (which I might have done at times in the past ) and get a few bites which causes a train wreck for a few pages, sure, the people who responded to my baiting haven't helped the situation. But surely, as the instigator, the fact that the thread went off the rails in the first place is my fault? I received the same punishment for a post in the First Test thread where I called out a few of the Indian posters (which was only stopped from becoming a train wreck because Spark was quickly onto the scene) as I did for responding to one of the idiots who trolled during the World Cup by telling him that all of his posts on the site (he'd made about 30 of them) were a disgrace. IMO, that's wrong; the former post is a much worse offence than the latter.

 

[Prince EWS]

It's a tricky one when it comes to Precam though, because he's been such a malignant influence on forum atmosphere in so many ways. As soon as people start to suspect that Bun, or Blaze, or whoever, is a Precam multi then that already begins to affect the forum atmosphere, and that's an impossibly tough position for the moderators to deal with, because we might be wrong, and the poster being accused might just be Random Singh from India who has no connection to Precam but is affecting the forum atmosphere through no fault of their own. Another huge problem though, is that most of the posters that have been strongly suspected of being Precam, that I can think of anyway, have all ended up being banned for being Precam multis. So usually, when the community gets up in arms and starts shouting "multi!", they're not wrong. How you deal with that problem I have no answers for.

Anyway, since this post wasn't meant to be about multis, I'll address the forum atmosphere point. When I was a mod I felt that we as a team were far too adverse to handing out bans when they were justified - it took absolutely ages for someone like WindieWeathers to get a lengthy ban, for instance, - and it's something which is still apparent. Unless the mod team had had a change of heart, Bun would have returned from his 1 week ban for trolling and would be free to post his usual victim crap and "I'm fed up with this place, I'm leaving" flounce, and this thread would have shut long ago amid the inevitable ****storm it would have caused. I tried to address the forum atmosphere issue and was told "we're not going to ban members because they're unpopular." Well, isn't the fact that Bun was wildly unpopular amongst pretty much an entire cross section of the community, including well respected members, former moderators, former staff members, and current staff members, surely an indication that he was harming the forum atmosphere? Sure, we could all put him on ignore, but half the forum putting a poster on the ignore list isn't the correct solution - when that needs to happen it is clear where the problem lies and what the solution is. Granted, certain posters didn't like Bun because they felt he was a Precam multi - the fact that Bun has been proven to be a Precam multi changes nothing in terms of whether I think he deserved to be canned for a long time.

And it's not like the mods have been scared to hand out bans related to forum atmosphere - my ban email contained the line "GingerFurball, you've been a downer on the forum atmosphere for a while now", there was at least one member of the mod team that felt that I was the worst offender in terms of bringing down the forum atmosphere, and James' announcement of Corrin's ban contains the phrase "Since he continued to break the rules and post in a manner that was extremely detrimental to the forum atmosphere, we had no choice but to apply the infractions that have banned him for 6 months." Now before anyone reads this wrong, I'm not arguing that the bans that Corrin or myself received were unjustified, my point is that forum atmosphere played a part in the two of us being given extended breaks from the site. So you're not scared to do it. But for some reason the "forum atmosphere" clause isn't used at times when it's quite clear it should be used.

One other thing about trolling in particular - people who dangle the bait and people who take the bite seem to be treated as one and the same. This doesn't seem right. If I dangle some bait in front of some posters (which I might have done at times in the past ) and get a few bites which causes a train wreck for a few pages, sure, the people who responded to my baiting haven't helped the situation. But surely, as the instigator, the fact that the thread went off the rails in the first place is my fault? I received the same punishment for a post in the First Test thread where I called out a few of the Indian posters (which was only stopped from becoming a train wreck because Spark was quickly onto the scene) as I did for responding to one of the idiots who trolled during the World Cup by telling him that all of his posts on the site (he'd made about 30 of them) were a disgrace. IMO, that's wrong; the former post is a much worse offence than the latter.

Post reported (because I largely agree with your pint and want to bring it up for discussion in the mod forum ).

A couple of things though. Firstly, neither you or Corrin were given what I'd call "forum atmosphere bans", even though the fact that you'd drained the forum atmosphere was mentioned in your ban reasons. We should probably stop doing that to avoid confusion. You were both banned due to an accumulation of infraction points that corresponded with your ban lengths. The only instances of genuine forum atmosphere bans I can recall during my tenure are WindieWeathers, aussie and Sir Alex. I personally think we should issue more of them, but it would require a few things as I've said before.

With regards to your last paragraph, are you suggesting that the "Trolling or baiting" infraction should be raised above the 5 points it currently stands at, to make it worth more than the "Lack of respect for, insulting, or harassment of other members"?

 

[grecian]

Your argument seems to be that he was a troll from the start and no action was taken against him. Well I've demonstrated that he wasn't a troll from the start and hardly anyone called him out as a troll either. I've also pointed out that in the rare cases when he was reported for trolling, we did take action. The mods can't read every post in every thread, so yes we do rely on the members to point out trollish posts to us.

As for your contention that you and others didn't report him because you didn't think it would make a difference, well I obviously disagree. Not to sound like a broken record, but we did infract Bun when he trolled. However, most of the noise around him was about the multi accusation, not that he was a troll (not saying that no one accused him of being a troll, but rather that the large majority of complaints were about the multi aspect).

Now there's obviously a trust deficit here between some members and the mods in regards to our policy toward trolling. It's something that the mods are constantly striving to improve. What I would plead for is a little bit of understanding and patience. If we disagree with you on a particular case, it doesn't mean we're biased or that we ignore your sentiments. We have a fairly diverse set of moderators on the team. We deliberate everything as a group. This diverse group makeup ensures (IMO) that we look at all aspects and perspectives when handing out infractions/bans. There's no room for bias within this group. I think by and large, we arrive at a fair conclusion when handling trolls. There's always room for improvement, and threads like these often cause us to improve/modify our moderation policies and their implementation. As PEWS mentioned, there are some good suggestions in this thread that we will certainly discuss as a mod team.

Okay, a reasonable reply, other then the word "contention", I will still maintain to my dying day that Bun was an obvious troll, very early, and you will contend otherwise, so it seems an impasse.

Oddly, I really don't want to report lots of posts though, I just want to enjoy the forum. As has been said 100s of times the problem of Bun type trolling, is you can't really ignore it, and you can't prove it in a couple of posts, it's accumalative.

Oh and still not been infracted, where's my hard man railing against the mods attitude going, infract me you ****s, pretty pleas with a cherry on top.

Ho-hum.

 

[Prince EWS]

Okay, a reasonable reply, other then the word "contention", I will still maintain to my dying day that Bun was an obvious troll, very early, and you will contend otherwise, so it seems an impasse.

Oddly, I really don't want to report lots of posts though, I just want to enjoy the forum. As has been said 100s of times the problem of Bun type trolling, is you can't really ignore it, and you can't prove it in a couple of posts, it's accumalative.

Oh andfstill not been infracted, where's my had man railing against the mods attitude going, infract me you ****s, pretty pleas with a cherry on top.

Ho-hum.

While this may seem to go against what a mod has said in before, you shouldn't have to ignore trolls; you shouldn't have to see them post at all. This isn't PlanetCricket or CricSim; you should be able to come into Cricket Chat here and not get baited into responding by keyboard heroes deliberately trying to antagonise people. While this doesn't mean you have any more right to lay into someone you think is a troll than someone you don't, or that it's an any way mitigating when it comes to your punishment if you do such a thing, it does mean that we do endeavour to remove trolls and don't expect part of your CW experience to be wading through pages of trolling and troll-reactions. People you simply don't like are of course different and we encourage you to ignore those.

It's been suggested that we're perhaps too lenient in coming to the conclusion that someone is either deliberately provoking members or is just a stain on the forum in general, which is something that I think needs to be discussed - either in this thread, in the mod forum, or both.

 

[Furball]

With regards to your last paragraph, are you suggesting that the "Trolling or baiting" infraction should be raised above the 5 points it currently stands at, to make it worth more than the "Lack of respect for, insulting, or harassment of other members"?

That might be one solutional though it presents its own problems; is the first post I've linked to insulting other members or is it trolling? There's probably a bit of both, so what infraction do you hand out?

I think a more leniency when dealing with people responding to being baited might be in order. Randomly insulting posters and trolling should be equivelant but responding to obvious provocation should carry less of a penalty.

 

[grecian]

While this may seem to go against what a mod has said in before, you shouldn't have to ignore trolls; you shouldn't have to see them post at all. This isn't PlanetCricket or CricSim; you should be able to come into Cricket Chat here and not get baited into responding by keyboard heroes deliberately trying to antagonise people. While this doesn't mean you have any more right to lay into someone you think is a troll than someone you don't, or that it's an any way mitigating when it comes to your punishment if you do such a thing, it does mean that we do endeavour to remove trolls and don't expect part of your CW experience to be wading through pages of trolling and troll-reactions. People you simply don't like are, of course, different, and we encourage you to ignore those.

It's been suggested that we're perhaps too lenient in coming to the conclusion that someone is either deliberately provoking members or is just a stain on the forum in general, which is something that I think needs to be discussed - either in this thread, in the mod forum, or both.

Blimey a sensible post from the mod team, I'll have to change my childish nickname for you, if you don't revert.

Hey look, I'm not saying this place should be a democracy, but when all the people who have won the Poster of the Year, or whatever it's called, for the last four years (I didn't vote for any of the ****s BTW) are saying things seem a bit off, then maybe it should be reviewed. After all surely some respected members (obviously not me) should be consulted in a way.

 

[Prince EWS]

That might be one solutional though it presents its own problems; is the first post I've linked to insulting other members or is it trolling? There's probably a bit of both, so what infraction do you hand out?

One for each.

I think a more leniency when dealing with people responding to being baited might be in order. Randomly insulting posters and trolling should be equivelant but responding to obvious provocation should carry less of a penalty.

So you're suggesting a split of the infraction into, for example:

Lack of respect for, insulting, or harassment of other members (unprovoked): 5
Lack of respect for, insulting, or harassment of other members (provoked): 3

?