Bulk-screen all comments by exampleusername

[cesy]

Title:
Bulk-screen all comments by exampleusername

Area:
banning, screening, comments

Summary:
An option to automatically screen all comments made in a journal under my control (personal journal or community) by any given user.

Description:
(Original LJ Suggestion: http://community.livejournal.com/suggestions/884592.html)

There are times when there is someone who has either provided so much grief in a journal or community over however long that they need to be completely gone from it, or they have had a falling-out with the journal owner or community maintainer and their presence is vigorously no longer desired. Screening their comments in one fell swoop would be really spiffy. Sometimes this person has also been suspended if a spammer, but sometimes it is just a conflict between two or more users in which Abuse really can't take a side other than to say that there should really be no contact.

This springs from discussion on a suggestion to delete all comments from a single user (http://community.livejournal.com/suggestions/881181.html), as a friendlier, more easy to reverse alternative.

This would be presented as a banning option, but I see no reason that it should not also be available separately. It would also be nice to have a quick reversal (in case of bulk-screening by accident), but not necessary.

An ordered list of benefits

* Unwanted comments being removed from view
* Not needing to search each comment down and screen it manually
* Screened comments can be unscreened if really needed after all; deleted comments cannot
* Peace of mind for someone who does not want comments from exampleusername visible on their journal or community
* Comments would still be able to be deleted by the original poster of the comments
* Comments would still be viewable by the journal owner/maintainer, entry owner (if community), and original poster

An ordered list of problems/issues involved

* Could be seen as a drama-enablement tool
* Developer time to actual user benefit ratio if this is not of use to a wide range of users
* Could be easy to do accidentally and difficult to reverse if no undo option is present
* (if an undo option is present) A tool to unscreen all screened comments by exampleusername could result in manually-screened comments becoming available
* Comments would still be able to be deleted by the original poster of the comments
* Comments would still be viewable by the journal owner/maintainer, entry owner (if community), and original poster

Personally, I would also suggest this as a paid feature.

Poll #1306 Bulk-screen all comments by exampleusername

Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 32

View Respondents

This suggestion:

View Answers

Should be implemented as-is.
11 (34.4%)

Should be implemented with changes. (please comment)
3 (9.4%)

Shouldn't be implemented.
6 (18.8%)

(I have no opinion)
12 (37.5%)

(Other: please comment)
0 (0.0%)

Comments

[zvi]

I think it's a great idea for personal journals, but I am not sure it's appropriate for community journals. Would it be possible to make it so that *all* maintainers had to sign off on the screening before it was implemented?

[cesy]

That sounds sensible.

[melannen]

+1

I'm uncomfortable with making it possible for any one mod to easily erase all record of a certain person in a community-yes, even if it's a troll.

If there were some way to make it hard for a mod to do lightly, though, it might be a good idea.

[cesy]

It won't erase all record, though - it's just screening, so the other mods can still see the comments and unscreen them.

[syderia]

I agree with this.

[zvi]

No, but I think it would be better not to get the mods into what amounts to an edit war, if we can avoid it.