occasionally I miss Usenet...

[julesjones]

One of the reasons I finally abandoned Usenet was because if I had to do *that* much killfiling to make it readable, it just wasn't worth the effort any more. But at least on Usenet I had a killfile (or at least my newsreader software of choice did). It's a feature I've always regretted not having on LJ, and from time to time I'm reminded of why...

Comments

[watervole]

I thought it was possible to ban specific people from commenting in your journal?

[julesjones]

It is. But banning and killfiling are two different things. With banning, you prevent people from commenting in an area you control, e.g. your own LJ or an LJ comm where you're a moderator. With killfiling on Usenet (and mailing lists, IRC etc), you don't stop them posting (and on Usenet at large, you *couldn't* stop them from posting), but your reader software doesn't display their posts to you. So if there is some annoying person whose posts you don't want to see, you don't have to.

On LJ, if there is some annoying person posting in someone else's LJ, I have no easy way of reading an otherwise interesting comment thread but not seeing that person's posts.

[james-nicoll.livejournal.com]

I am pretty sure I blocked W*ll Sh*tt*rly and L*K* J*ckson on LJ. So there is something like a killfile.

[julesjones]

You can certainly block people from commenting in your own LJ. Never yet had to do it other than for spammers, but I have reason to be glad it's there if I need it.

However, I haven't seen anything that allows me to not see comments from specific people in other people's LJs. Admittedly, I haven't looked very hard -- doubtless there are GreaseMonkey scripts for the purpose.

[sallymn.livejournal.com]

That would be useful, yes...

[seawasp]

I've never used a killfile at all, but nowadays you don't need much of one even if you used them.

[julesjones]

You've got a higher tolerance for inanity and top-posting than I have, and wrists in somewhat better working order. I had an extremely small killfile, but I did need it to keep the signal to noise level at a usable level for me because of the RSI. (I was actually much more likely to killfile a thread or sub-thread than an individual.)

[seawasp]

Oh, undoubtedly true, but by now the total volume on,say, r.a.sf.w is an order of magnitude below what it used to be, so someone who had a small killfile in the past probably doesn't need one at all (except maybe for the few obvious non-contributing troll-types, like "The Starmaker").