Infact...this idea just came up two seconds ago to me. I'm not sure if this has been suggested before, but how about the antipoints don't go to a particular user, but rather a whole thread. This would elimate competitions at all (unless ofcourse the one-in-a-blue-moon "my thread is better than you" crap, which Moderators can easily overcome). This would mean that each individual would not have to worry about ANY antipoint "status" whatsoever, and would allow more chance for good threads to show up and bad to go down. For this could also turn into a way for threads to get to the main page, more points "donated(?)" to a thread would boost the thread higher on the scale.

Maybe we still may need a small individual AP status to give more points to a thread or not? ...Hopefully not. I vote for EVERYBODY to have the SAME amount of points, regardless of their amount of excellent or crap posts.

Maybe though the AP comments could remain? Maybe instead of the link saying: Assign Positive or Negative AntiPoints To This Post ; it could say: Comment user about post or something. Now I wouldn't want this to "take over" (if you will) the PM, but the comment would allow you to refrence back to a particular or specific thread the user wrote, which would be easier. Things like the Newsletter, things from JP, wargame info (I'm not a part of that so I don't really know if you get that PM'ed to you or not). AO PM should be like AO secondary mail - just for the community though, if you can understand that.

Just my two cents.