Honestly, I haven't seen any evidence of this 'chain smiting'. The question becomes "How do you know it is all from one person, and not that several people decided to smite you individually?" People assume that, because their smite total went up by 4, someone must have hit them four times, when it could be that four individuals each decided to hit them. Remember that sometimes people who are merely reading the thread, not participating it, may hand out applause and smites for all the same reasons those in the thread might. Now, if someone could provide evidence that someone was multi-smiting someone, that'd be a different story. Sometimes, your actions annoy bystanders, and they smite you for it too.
Then again, I get amused when people with under a hundred smites complain about how much people are smiting them. Forget getting your undies in a twist about it. Take your rep score, both positive and negative, as a sign that you are contributing something to the forum. Anyone can lurk, but putting your neck out there and raising an opinion (and then defending that opinion) is going to get people blasting you when they don't agree. As long as they aren't using Black Hammer, who cares? Make an impact, don't be part of the scenery.
Of course, I'm fairly certain I deserved all the smites I've gotten.
