The introduction of the Viral and Mature tags seems to have done nothing but worsen the problem that it was meant to fix. The default setting now hides displays Viral posts, bringing additional content to the site, but blocks Mature posts, meaning that many (most?) of the content created by users is blocked for people first viewing the site. The sites biggest draw is its own brand of memes and its requirement that posted content is funny, but most of this is put behind a Mature wall, while the Viral posts -- which have almost entirely taken over Front for anybody not signed in -- are all posts that are taken from elsewhere on the internet, and are posts that new visitors have likely already seen.

As far as a solution, I'm sure most regular users would prefer dropping both Viral and the Mature block, but other than that I don't really have any ideas.

I think it's unfair for users to get those bans for such a long time (3 or more strikes = a lot of weeks ). Most of the times users don't deserve/ask for it. So if you want to have a fair punishment system, I think afer a period of time you should make one strike go away (eg a month or something). If strikes remain permanently then it will be a matter of time and a shame for users contributing to get perma-banned, because the rules are vague and it's not clearly what is considered bannable and what's not. Also it's hard to return to the site after a 3 weeks ban and being as active as he/she was before. With this system users would be very carefull of what to post if they are on a 2> strike ban (also they won't post as much frequent as they would in fear of getting banned), so they will comply for a month (suggested period of time for removing one strike) and also, when the strike removes, they won't be afraid all the time for getting month-long bans so they will be not afraid to post, even some borderly accepted memes, that we don't know if they fit the rules . It's like a "you learn your lesson" system, because not comlying to the rules should be punished, BUT complying to the rules should get a kind of a reward too.

The new feature that hides votes for the first hour or so doesn't really compliment viral posts. The spine of this site is it's community. If, by introducing viral content, admins seek to attract new people in here, they might start posting bad content aswel. So, for them, we should include vote-visibility, so that they would more easily see what type of content is acceptable, and what isn't.

Either that, or make new-users unable to post until their account reached 5-10 day mark, so that they'd be lurking for a while before becoming a part of the community.

Having more users isn't bad, if they post quality content.

Once earned they would be all year around until a new user is chosen and on their profile it would show for which years they had that badge.

New Year New Me
The user that has the highest karma to post ratio during January

Saint Patricks (Gets a St. added at the front of there name)
The user that has the highest karma to post ratio during March

The Rabbit
The user that has the highest karma to post ratio during April

Spookiest
The user that has the highest karma to post ratio during October

Santa
The user that has the highest karma to post ratio during December

WhiteBones