I asked a similar question on SE Meta, but it should have been here.
I'm hoping for answers about the mechanics of dealing with trolling and misbehavior.
Edit: I asked this question on SE Meta, but was told that such a question might be more welcome here. I've been going to SE since the beginning and love the consistent quality of the answers (in my case it has helped me with LaTeX, Ubuntu and scripting). I want to be able to explain why it works.
Anyway, this question is not in any way meant to help trolls find loopholes (the system will just be fixed if necessary to close them). It is meant to help explain to new or potential users why this system works well keeping the more annoying aspects of Internet anarchy at bay.