Steve H. has the same problem that led me to my very first banning of a commenter in about a year:
When you blog, one of the realities that you face is that people read three lines of every entry and then feel completely prepared to comment.
It’s never a case of they’ve gone carefully through your screed before deciding to hit the keyboard. It’s always to do with the fact that certain words or phrases somehow stimulated their remaining three or four working synapses — in my case “Katrina” (as in, the hurricane) and possibly “NOLA hysterics,” as none of these Einsteins think they are anything but calm and rational. Even when they start emoting about their grandmas who are not in New Orleans and so have nothing to do with the problem I was posting about. One thing I forgot to ask “doctor2ju” — if he’s so worried about his grandma having to live in a town that is still “slabs, tents and trailers” why doesn’t he go and get her and install her in a more aesthetically pleasing part of the US?
4 Responses to “Burning down the house”
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January 19th, 2008 at 10:19 am
Tell Andrea for me that New Orleans and the Gulf Coast were equally destroyed. I am an eye witness. The difference was the cause. One was a destroyed by a hurricane, the other by failed federal levees. Ignore it all you want. The people of the Gulf South know the truth. And NO! We are NOT leaving our homes. Keep your help and support. We are still Americans. We just have a better idea of what that actually means. Now go ahead and ban me. Stay in your pretend bubble of a world that is fair and just. I use to inhabit it too, so I understand. Katrina shattered mine. I didn’t have a “ban” button to push so I don’t have the luxury to ignore it. I know this bothers your little group but New Orleans is doing great mostly because of the local citizens that refused to let her die and good volunteers from all over the world that wanted to help people in need. I contacted Habitiat for Humanity to volunteer again and they are booked up until April. So you see, there are many good Americans that CARE. That is important to us. Now you go can back to demonizing Americans you know nothing about. I will leave you alone. You all deserve your company to yourself.
January 19th, 2008 at 10:31 am
It’s the phenomenon of the Paulbots writ large: they look in places like Technorati for things which reference their obsession, and then they descend like the plague they are. The ostensible doctor also chimed in at American Digest, just to make sure his precious little link got spread around.
This is the situation for which the term “GYOFB” was invented.
January 19th, 2008 at 4:23 pm
You STILL aren’t reading what I wrote, doctorju. You are STILL forbidden to write here, until you learn to READ.
January 21st, 2008 at 10:07 am
I suspect this is something happening in the society at large, not just among blog commenters. It’s like there are so many people out there longing to get their nethergarments in a wad, that they just focus on certain keywords…it’s almost as if real people have been replaced by ‘bots that can only respond in a particular way.
I also see lots of poor reading comprehension, not reading entire passages, and kneejerk reactions among my students (I’m a college prof). I’ve gotten some real WTF? type responses to questions on exams.