I think anybody who's been on K5 for a reasonable amount of time is familiar
with drduck (http://www.kuro5hin.org/user/uid:20599) and his comment rating
bonanza.

Anyway, I think I have a solution to the problem of "modboming" accounts
which shouldn't stress a scoop server too much; Comment/moderation ratios.

Heres how I envisage it working:

1) Johnny posts a comment to K5 or rates a comment on K5
2) Scoop divides the number of comments Johnny has made vs the number of
comment ratings he has made and then by a comment/moderation ratio
3) If the number from (2) is less than 1 revoke Johnny's rating privilidges
4) If the number from (2) is greater than 1 then re-enable Johnny's ratings
if they haven't been enabled already.

This would create the following overheads:

* A select to get the number of comments
* A select to get the number of ratings
* A select to check moderation ability
* An ALTER to the comment rating ability (Optional)

Optional sub-features:
* Limiting users from rating until a certain number of comments have been
met
* Tying the comment rating ability to a user's mojo

If someone thinks a beginning Perl coder can handle this one I'm game to
give it a shot.

Mal