Gaming the blog to suppress others

Someone adds a series of 'non-comment' comments to a LL blog entry in order to bring the number of comments up to the limit of 100. The game is to prevent an opponent in a flame war from responding to the flames of the poster.

Although this action ends the war in that blog posting (which is a 'good thing'), it also deprives others of the opportunity to make more valuable comments (which standard would not be difficult to achieve).
Should this person be barred from posting blog comments until they apologise and promise not to do it again?

The war going on there was started by the same resident who closed the blog with brainless spam in order to get it to 100 comments, and finished with the statement "this thread has out lived it usefulness. closed! THE END!", completely ignoring that the blog is no discussion thread but a place for customer feedback.

He berefts business people from one of the only ways to contact LL or give feedback to them, like making it urgent that the classified / places ads are up and running again over the weekend. Many of his comments include insults and personal attacks, and I never read anything useful or even remotely comprehensible from this resident. Can people be banned from the blog?

I wonder if Net users should be obliged to wear a device that breaks the connection if their pulse rate goes above a set limit.
True, this would have a severe impact on online sex, but it would cut down the flame wars....But hey! all in a good cause.

/nods. Between the two people I can see that were involved, they've taken up almost 20% of available comment space in the latest blog entry. That's pretty disrespectful of users who might actually have on-topic concerns.

The answer to your question (Aleister) is I think, yes. I believe one high profile resident has been banned from the blog.

There should be an easy way to limit the # of entries a person can make in each BLOG. If it were set to 1, maybe a lot more of the entries would be thought out a bit more and might be more useful to everyone. Another way might be to have a new feature that allows the reader to MUTE particular authors!

I wouldn't call them hig profile.. just lacking sanity.

I always struggle to find an appropriate term.

I have the right term, just can't use it on these forums

You mean PG appropriate term, don't you? Because I have several about both, unfortunately, none of them very PG.

*grins at Banking* Yeah.. exactly.

*sighs* I guess it was just as well that I decided to play CoH yesterday. At least it's update didn't cause MORE bugs

It's ridiculous of them to do that but I don't understand why they limit blog comments to 100.

It's because they wanted to limit the "boos and hisses," because if you notice the ones that are likely to get kudos aren't limited in that manner. So, I think it means they have NO intention of reading the stupid thing if it's limited. Otherwise, they'll moderate (gee, they said the forums were taking up too much time to moderate) when they want the kudos.

A limit of one comment per poster, but with an option to edit that comment would be good.

People who want to give informational and/or constructive feedback would have an opportunity to get it in.
Such a thing might also permit the 100-comment limit to be relaxed or abolished, potentially enabling a more open and very accessible view of what "the community" is thinking about a specific blog post.
In the case of ongoing user issues, people could also add supplementary information, describing new related issues and/or workarounds that they are seeing, which could be valuable and timely information for other residents and for LL.

The flamers could get their rocks off in monolithic 20Mb comments
Ditto for the attention whores
Even for moi!

If comments were editable then the thing might need some sort of 'last-edited' sort view. The flamers would game that by continually editing their 'contributions'. They would be an easy mark for an eyeball filter though, a bit like high-traffic/lag places in Search.

I'm so transparent. Yes, that's what I meant.

I really like this idea Sling. Much as I dislike the blog, it is not a forum, and people trying to use it as one are ruining it for everybody. Limiting people to one editable comment per blog entry would make forum-like interaction difficult, and increase the chance of comments being relevant to the topic.

Any Lindens out there listening?

I'm pleasantly surprised to see this thread. I was thinking exactly the same thing as I was reading the blog post in question.

Granted, we don't have the official discussion venues we once had, but I don't believe blog comments were intended to be a discussion forum. Rather, they're a place to offer feedback. There's an important distinction between feedback & discussion.

Especially when blog entries are limited to 100 entries, its just not fair to everyone else who would like to leave a comment when a few people dominate them with repeated 'comments'. On many blog entries, a single person often dominates 10% or more of the total comments.

I would suggest folks email Torley Linden at [email]torley@lindenlab.com[/email] if you'd like to see this policy changed, and perhaps reference this thread. It may not get results - but it never hurts to ask.

Good suggestion. Email sent.

Another one I have to chime in on.....lol. I noticed the same problem in the blog, and one of the parties constantly fills up the blogs with useless comments. And if anyone even dares to "criticize" this person, he becomes very rude and obnoxious. I counted as many as 18 posts to a blog from this particular resident before, which I think is rude and inconsiderate. He/She also posts on the forum, and should recognize him/herself in this comment. I hope he/she does and realizes that he/she is not amusing, not helpful, but is very annoying and rude. Hmmmm, is this flaming? I hope not, because that's not my intention, but sometimes you just have to bring up, and comment on, rudeness and inconsideration.
Just my 2 cents.

It's always the same person that does it :/ I've put said person on ignore in here and in game, just wish there was an ignore feature in the blog

It's a she.

The Linden blog has been a revelation to me. As time has passed, I've become aware of an in-built mental killfiling ability. When I perceive certain names, I jump straight past to the next comment without really thinking about what I'm doing. When I perceive what is obviously the beginning of a wall of text, I automatically click the scrollbar and skip to the next comment. Again, it usually occurs to me afterwards what I did. The Linden blog has mentally conditioned me...and I think I like what it did.

Hehe, same here. I was thinking that LL should ban this poster from posting on the Blogs. So disrespectful of others. With only 100 available entries, posting 11 of those is so downright rude.

I like the idea of one Blog post w/edit capability. That could go a long way in resolving some issues with the Blog's usefullness.

There is a way go to the Buddy List and you can ban. They will not appear in any thread you are reading.

I thought the same about the blog in question. They say they can delete entries, so why don't they in cases like this?

One comment per blog doesn't work so well even if you could edit the comment, points raised in the comments are debated further down the comments, the thread would be more difficult to follow if each poster could only make one comment.

This may sound somewhat redundant... I was going to start a new thread but then saw this one and decided to reply instead......

OK, the grid has had problems, and the times we have not been able to get in or use all of the services is really annoying. However, the only saving grace is the Forum. Being able to read, reply, get information etc...

BUT COME ON! Some of the replies are so off the topic there is no way of knowing the original thread's intent???

They turn into arguments, quite childish in fact, between two residents. There was one today that I wanted to reply to but could not because the resident had WASTED the last three posts of the 100. Why? I guess because they did not want the other resident to use them, so they went "nana nana you can't use them" {{that’s not what they said but it was what it seemed like}} they got their wish the other resident could not reply, HOWEVER, neither could ANYONE ELSE who maybe had a valid and on topic statement.

Please take a moment and think about what you are going to write. If it starts to go off in a direction that you want to pursue but may not be right for that thread-- START A NEW ONE!
Or if it gets personal use IM. Ya got their name!!!


Keep up the thought provoking, insightful, and informative ones- You know who you are :}}
__________________
That Girl!

They should take it to the forums if it turns into a debate.

I'm all for one comment per person and deletion of off-topic posts. I've seen more than one person go off on tangents that don't add to the subject and just take up space. The blog is the only place I've seen Lindens consistently replying...but only when it has to do with what the blog is about.

I've had a couple times where I wanted to put my 2 cents in on a situation to potentially get some feedback but was locked out of commenting because people post the pointless"oh no here we go again!", "This is unacceptable!" or "I want my stipend!" one liners. They don't add to the discussion or bring up any valid points other than you're not satisfied.

Well considering a lot of the same people spamming the blogs are also avid cryers in the forums I think it's already been made known that you're not satisfied.

MarieElize, I surmise you are a nice person, because you are addressing certain people as if they were nice persons at heart and could be reasoned with. Please understand, while most people are basically decent folks at heart, there are some who are not nice people at heart but are deliberately and consciously malicious and so cannot be reasoned with. Except maybe by their therapist, if they have one.

It would be nice to figure out what their problem is and address it, but usually one cannot. Best thing: Take steps to get them out of your life as quickly and as completely as possible. You can tell them they have a problem if you want - that way, your conscience is clear, if you need to clear it. But in the end you are responsible first and foremost for yourself, and for yourself and you're well-being. You are not responsible for them; they are.

When they cannot be reached, they need to be rendered unable to do more harm.

I think one, or at most two posts per blog item, is the way to go in this case.

So if the Linden's are allowed to reply, shouldn't a poster be allowed to reply to the reply? Or if someone is making a point that the blog covers, shouldn't a person other than the Linden's be allowed to clarify and then make another point further down the blog?