If people started taking your first advice, comment quality would go up, and downvoting might be a little more prevalent, discouraging at least “pointless” posts. Also, posts in clear violation of guidelines would not happen much, unless there was visibly an exceptional benefit, lest they draw downvotes. Judging from MathOverflow (see my other comment), the downvoting doesn’t devolve into fearmongering, either, just a healthy immunity to trolling and time-wasting.
If people started taking your first advice, comment quality would go up, and downvoting might be a little more prevalent, discouraging at least “pointless” posts. Also, posts in clear violation of guidelines would not happen much, unless there was visibly an exceptional benefit, lest they draw downvotes. Judging from MathOverflow (see my other comment), the downvoting doesn’t devolve into fearmongering, either, just a healthy immunity to trolling and time-wasting.
This is great Meta material ;)