An entirely earnest suggestion for DK5: can the mojo algorithm possibly be tweaked to automatically time-out someone who posts 100+ comments in 3 hours in the same thread?
I was going to wade into that diary, but I decided life was too short. In fact, I am hard pressed at the moment to think of a better way to illustrate the cruelty, unfairness, capriciousness, and general cussedness of Life Itself than that jaw-dropping story of the instructor, the Uzi, and the nine year old.
I can understand that such a catastrophe might inspire strong feelings. But I also think that a situation where one user posts ~25% of the comments in a 400+ (and still counting) comment thread, screaming, scolding, judging, hurling insults, and just plain carrying on for hours, bitterly railing at scores of strangers that user has never met and likely never will, constitutes a sort of spamming. I don't think it's better when that user isn't trying to sell rock crushers or what-not, but instead is having an emotional temper tantrum over [X] that happened to a perfect stranger and sees fit to repetitively wail about how awful the whole site is and how awful every person they slightly disagree with is. Spam isn't necessarily solely about commerce. It can also signify sheer volume. Vehemence. Fever. Demagoguery. When stubborn becomes obtuse.
I mean, for fuck's sake. Say what you need to say, and then after a reasonable number of comments, maybe consider taking a walk. Get some fresh air. Pour yourself a drink. Pet a puppy. Call an old friend. Close the goddamn browser, or unplug the computer entirely for a short period. Kill the circuit breaker, if that's what it takes. Just do something else already. Sleep on it. Come back tomorrow and see your own angry words glisten and quiver in the new day's light's glare.
Life is short. Life is unfair. Life is a thousand different types of fucked up. Life goes on. Life is like that.
Crucially (and I hope people understand this), we've seen this type of behavior before. I don't want people to think this is just about that one thread and that one user. (Did I mention I usually hate meta? I have better things to do.)
The news of the last several weeks has been notable in its unrelenting negativity, a sustained shitstorm. Wanton police brutality, racism, expansionist jihadist maniacs, volcanoes, methane, earthquakes, Gaza, Ukraine, Libya, and now this fucking thing about that Uzi. And a partridge in a pear tree.
I have been feeling especially angry and cynical recently, and sometimes I wonder if the only thing that motivates me to comment here any more is when I'm galactically pissed off enough at someone or something to bother to log in and then fire off angry screeds into the ether. I hate feelinkg like that. I'm probably going to wince when I read this tomorrow. But I also feel that (as I hope my user name would indicate) I try to get the excess weight off my chest when necessary and then move the fuck on. Saying something effective once ought to be enough. Trying again with a different approach is one thing, but after a while, it should be clear when people just ain't getting it. Maybe it's their failing, maybe it's yours, maybe it's both. But saying the same thing over and over again with rising pitch eventually makes you the issue, makes you into a brand new problem that everyone else can't help but respond to.
I have no religiosity to fall back on when I'm down and out. Sometimes I drink too much, sometimes I listen to sad bastard music, or loud and belligerent music, sometimes I just sit with my cats in relative quiet and try not to think so fuckin' hard. Sometimes I scratch mosquito bites til they bleed and I have to slap neosporin and a band-aid on it, not so much to make it heal faster, but so I can just quit goddamn fucking with it constantly and making it worse. So I can leave it well enough alone already.
The best lack all conviction/while the worst are full of passionate intensity.