We believe respectful and civil conversation is essential to a community, and we need your help to improve the quality of story commenting.

Our new user point system is part of that effort. You'll be awarded points for good commenting and for helping improve the commenting (voting, flagging spam, et cetera).

If you break the rules, you may lose points. If we have to block your account, you'll lose everything.

Some of this is automated, but it will take a few days to be fully configured, so don't be surprised if your point total says at zero for awhile.