Please Don't Shout the Comment Filter Down. Some People Need It.

A year back, someone brought my profile to a halt by posting the same comment repeatedly in my threads for five hours. That’s one message a minute over… and over… and over. There was so much spam I couldn’t cut through the noise. When the caretakers nuked the profile, he’d open another… and another… and another. It took several attempts to get rid of the person responsible.

I have another hater who’s been posting the same comment in my threads via sock puppets for a year. Then he immediately deactivates the sock. If I block it, he opens another.

Yet another of my haters has been poking at me for four years, but I can’t tell you about that one for reasons that should become clear in a moment.

These three people are far from exceptions. A quick skim of the first page of my block list shows four sock puppets out of 20 blocks. That’s 20% over six days. Page two includes five obvious socks. It reached the point of absurdity yesterday when a sock puppet opened a sock puppet.

Haters are an exceedingly stubborn species. Their obsession is only rivalled by their contempt.

Fetlife has one primary tool for dealing with serious harassment cases: Fetlife restraining orders, which are two-sided. Both you and your stalker are barred from mentioning or writing to one another. If either of you violates the terms, you’re put on a series of increasingly long timeouts. This can happen for years because perma-bans bring their own problems. The person the restraining order is intended to constrain usually doesn’t mind timeouts, but the victim is rendered mute. They can’t defend themselves from their stalker’s smear campaigns, much less see them. It’s a great tool for regular trolls, but there’s little anyone can do about obsessive haters…

… until now.

The new comment restrictions are the best tools for reducing harassment I’ve seen yet. When they're used with an inbox filter, they force stalkers into their own spaces, so you never have to see them. That way, we can manage online abuse independently, leaving the caretakers with more time to deal with important issues like sex trafficking.

I’ve never used a pair of pliers, but that doesn’t make them a terrible tool. Electricians and handymen would struggle without them, just as I’d struggle without needles or yarn. The same applies here. Just because you won’t use the tool, doesn’t mean it's worthless. Please don’t shout it down. Some people need it.