RC doesn't even remotely limit spam. The largest abusers here have less than 1000 HP and can spam endlessly with little impact on their RC.
The RC system is completely broken and only affects new users usually doing legitimate transactions.
I've brought up a few times about revamping the RC system so it actually does something having scaling costs for operations. So if a single user posts 20 comments, they are fine, but it starts getting incrementally more expensive. This way users who spam 1000 comments a day can't do with impunity. You always have the make another account syndrome though, but RC currently doesn't do jack for any use case it was intended for. With RC delegation it is even easier to get around.
Bpcvoter just started another spam campaign with his various numbered accounts. He can comment his accusations without any issue, but new accounts can't always reply to every comment on their intro posts. The formula needs fixing.
Yup
I missed this comment at the time, but appreciate the information, and find your rational consideration quite compelling.
I know all the basics of how RC system works, mana/dvmana, d/voting-%, ties to HP, etc, and I remember a little from very early discussions on RC and balancing it, but then I lost the track. From what you said, it seems like there's some basic obvious issue that eludes me. Could you elaborate on that a bit? Or a link to a post that explains it/etc would be fine.
I don’t know of a good reference outside of the codebase. We don’t have much for docs or tutorials.