I agree with you @basshadow that the dust level needs to be lowered to 0.009, or possibly even less, or no minimum at all.
While your idea for eliminating spam is a good one, and I do feel that post authors should have some sovereignty over who comments on and/or who gets rewarded in the comments to their posts, I have a tingle that such a move could invite something too close to totalitarian censorship. I mean, so, say I just don't like or disagree with what @blahblahblahwhoever has to say, I can then just eliminate or make invisible any comment they make on my post? Might that not be just a little nit too much power?
I'm not sure though, I'll have to digest your idea a little bit more ;~)
It is your post, lets say it is a post about family, and you are a family friendly person, and that you do not like Nazi speak or porn, or atheist, and your post has absolutely nothing to do with any of those subjects, does my right to free speech allow me to come to your post and spew hatred, eugenics, big bang, links or actual pictures of people having sex expressing their free love on your post. All those just listed are examples of free speech carried to an extreme. They are not furthering engagement on your post. They are shutting it down or detracting from your message. You are not limiting or censoring that person at all. They can make their own post, on those subjects. So whose free speech was censored, Yours or Theirs. You are not telling them they have no right to say what they want, just that they do not have the right to say it in your Home.
The debate over free speech vs censorship is an age old one, and I certainly don't think we're going to solve it here in a few comments. Nevertheless, you make some excellent points, @bashadow. You've convinced me. To be honest it wasn't that hard though as I was leaning much more on your side of the fence anyway, I was mostly just playing devil's advocate .
I mean, while I'm all for free speech, I do believe that every man's (or woman's) home, or blog post, is their castle. And I know that if some douchebag was spouting some serious BS or what have you that I strongly disliked or found distasteful on my blog post I'd certainly feel well within my rights to delete.
Thanks for the chat! I love intelligent debate 8-)
Like you said it is a debate that will go on for a long time. An individual can not censor another person, if they could it would be against the law to tell anyone anywhere anytime to "Shut Up"! Catch 22.
Haha. Indeed! Thanks again for an enjoyable debate!