Negative Smites - Back to zero

[Cindy]

We have put everyone back to zero negative smites so everyone has a clean slate again. Please be considerate to people when posting, read your post a few times so that it is not offensive and please no foul language.

The Terms of Service are there to keep the place civil and communication open and free, please read and follow them.

[Dani]

Is it possible to just disable negative smites completely? If it is causing a problem, just delete this feature.

[Dena]

All negative smites are reviewed by staff and often more than one set of eyes. Administrators have the ability to remove negative smites and do when an improper smite is delivered. Unfortunately most of the the negative smites are delivered by forum moderators or administrators for violations of site policy. We hate giving them and normally it takes multiple violations before we deliver one.

Smites that remain unfortunately are often well deserved and removing them is an amnesty.

[MaryT]

I think that the amnesty is a lovely idea.

I've noticed a couple of times that even entirely innocent moderators or other important members sometimes showed an unjustifiable smite on their reputations for quite long periods.  I wondered whether they were worn with a sort of pride, like unjustly earned Scarlet Letters.

Perhaps in the future, a negative smite could just last for a specific period, e.g. six months or perhaps a year.