Comments | suggestions: No comments from new journals

arbat in suggestions

No comments from new journals

Jun 29, 2010 19:41

Title
No comments from new journals

Short, concise description of the idea
I want to block new journals from commenting in mine.

Full description of the ideaOn many occasions people create empty journals just for spam. This way, when that one-time-empty-journal is banned, they can create another ( Read more... )

comments, new users, § no status, spam

Comments 31

polyfrog September 8 2010, 01:35:57 UTC

I like "no comments from anyone my friends have banned" and "no comments from empty journals." The other two ("no comments from new journals" and "no comments from those banned by more than X") I'm not as crazy about. And I'd like to see "screen comments from..." more than "disallow comments from..."

arbat September 8 2010, 01:56:09 UTC

"I'm not as crazy about."

Why? I mean - those features will not be harder to implement than the others. And, if you do not want to use them - you do not need to.

On the other hand, they may be quite useful, - I have been on quite a few occasions spammed by bots that were already banned by many of my friends, - that could have been prevented with any of those features.

The first 10, or 20, or 30 targets will ban a bot, - and make it easy for the rest of us.

polyfrog September 8 2010, 02:07:54 UTC

I have friends who have suddenly abandoned their journal and started a new one to avoid stalkers. Obviously, they can't post something before they go; all they can do is comment from the new journal. But not if I've banned comments from new journals....

People get banned for all sorts of reasons, including having unpopular opinions. If I've turned on "no comments from users banned by X people", my friends might suddenly lose the ability to comment to me, if they post something controversial. But if a lot of my friends ban someone, I'm much more likely to agree that that person needs to be banned.

Also, as I said, I'd be much happier with screening comments from $criteria-X; a spammer or someone posting offensive comments wants attention. If they don't even get seen by the public, in my experience they just vanish.

arbat September 8 2010, 02:14:52 UTC

"But not if I've banned comments from new journals...."

You can make them your "friends" and override the block. In any case, I am not saying - "let's turn it on for everyone by default!" If you do not want the feature - you need not use it :-)

"People get banned for all sorts of reasons, including having unpopular opinions"

True. I trust my friends though.

In any case, - what if I want to ban the unpopular opinion? Why deprive me of the possibility? Ok, I am an ass who wants only popular slogans and bumpers stickers! Fine. Why not let me be one?

Over and over you argue along the lines of "I do not want to use those features". This is fine. But this is a reason of why you should not use them - not why they should not exist.

Thread 8

azurelunatic September 8 2010, 02:10:37 UTC

Blocking journals that were created recently, for whatever value of 'recently', from commenting, without other measures to make sure that spammers get caught before those two months expire, does not particularly strike me as useful -- that will mean that spammers will create batches of journals two months ahead of time, and then start spamming with them as soon as they could do so. It would only be the dumb spammers who started trying to spam on the first day and would get blocked in some places and caught in others. (Though the people who blocked new journals would doubtless be shielded from those dumb spammers.)

If something like this is implemented, an obvious amendment would be "block new users from commenting [more than once per day] unless I have added them as a friend" because I certainly hope no-one will add a spammer as a friend (or keep a spammer as a friend, if one manages to fool someone for a short time).

arbat September 8 2010, 02:23:44 UTC

There are other problems besides "normal" spammers. For example, you may ban a real person from your journal - only to have him back under different nickname, freshly created.

Now, while you are off in your office - an idiot like this can easily flood your journal with comments just in spite. Proposed measure will make it impossible.

azurelunatic September 8 2010, 04:17:26 UTC

Yes, it would make casual abuse of that sort harder.

Cleaning up from someone who does such a thing can be made easier now by reporting him for ban evasion. A suspended user's comments disappear.

arbat September 8 2010, 04:58:33 UTC

Been there. Investigation takes days, - and during those days the spam continues.

How about ban for new journals from a given IP, or an IP range?

Thread 10

boredinsomniac September 8 2010, 04:11:22 UTC

I think "journals that were banned by more then 20 people" is an interesting idea, but it would be too easy to abuse. A group of trolls (or one person with several accounts) could gang up on a person and ban him from their journals, thus preventing him from posting in journals that have this option turned on. Of course, most people comment in their friends' journals, which wouldn't be affected, but it could prevent a person from participating in community discussions.

azurelunatic September 8 2010, 04:15:25 UTC

User-only feature?

boredinsomniac September 8 2010, 05:53:56 UTC

Sure, why not?

arbat September 8 2010, 04:54:41 UTC

This can be limited to "banned by 20 friends of mine".

Thread 11

wendymr November 24 2010, 01:57:59 UTC

I think this defeats the purpose of LJ and I would not support it at all.

arbat November 24 2010, 03:11:38 UTC

My idea was about how to stop spammers.

If I thought that LJ has some purpose that spam-blocking defeats, I would've immediately closed my account.