»Do you ban hecklers and trolls? Why do you moderate anonymous comments?
»How do I make a user account for your blournal/blog?
»What's with the domain name?
»Who is Jer_?
»What about "Those who can, do; those who can't, teach" (and those who can't teach, teach gym)?
»What's with all of the writing?
»How do I get a question put in here?
»Why didn't you just do this in WordPress or something and do away with your LiveJournal?
»What is a blournal?
You are probably correct.
That having been said, though, this is my "house" as it were (and in this case, 'this' applies to my web presence, Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, or whatever other places I might inhabit); as such, I will pretty much kick off my shoes and be me here. That means swearing, obscenity, crass thoughts, grossly inappropriate humor, and ideas that range from disagreeable to downright foolish. If you are likely to be offended by any of this, I'd suggest going elsewhere for your entertainment needs.
You are, of course, welcome to stick around anyways and even to point out my potty mouth, disturbing viewpoints, or other such inanity. Such statement will be subject to a wide range of responses. If you are witty, we might banter in an amusing fashion. If you are insightful, we might debate. If you are boring, I might merely tell you to fuck yourself. If you are persistent, I will probably ban you or devote entire posts to discouraging your behavior through verbal assault.
I do not ban hecklers and trolls. I don't, as a rule remove their posts either. If it amuses me or if I'm cranky, I might post a response; otherwise, I generally just ignore them. The big exception to that rule is persistance. If you are spammy, I will ban you/block you/delete your post. Otherwise, I pretty much only delete posts that betray private information or that the poster wishes removed (for reasons that I do not consider cowardly.)
The same generally applies to anonymity. I generally disapprove of anonymous posting in my comments. I am so bold as to attach my name to my words, and if others did the same, much Internet trolling would go away entirely. It is an unrealistic expectation, though, that would deprive me of much great commentary. As a compromise, I allow anonymous comments, but I have to moderate them in. 90% of the time, I'll just let the comments in without any issue. If they are completely useless to the conversation, however, I'll just delete them. If you want to post drivel, make an account.
The easiest way I can express is to simply join LiveJournal by creating an account here. You don't have to keep anything there, and if you message me to let me know who you are, I can even set your account up to be privy to the disturbingly minimal amount of private content I generate.
Another alternative is to set up or use an OpenID login. I've never successfully used it though, so I don't know if it is even worth the trouble.
I'm a (current year - 1976) year old father of two delightful children. I've been in the IT field for years as a network administrator, systems administrator, software developer, project manager, middle manager, and the head of IT. I've also built houses, remodeled kitchens and baths, and put roofs on homes. Both types of jobs were enjoyable in their own way, but I'm now pursuing my dream; I'm back in school so that I can get my degree and continue to teach college students how to use, program, and think about computers.
I don't have any big aspirations to live off my writing, but I would one day like to refine my writing to the point where I could be published, if for no other reason than my own vanity. Yes, even people with an ego like mine need it stroked on occasion (actually, a sad truth is that people with egos like mine need it stroked MORE often.)
First, I really enjoy jerking around in html, and I use this as a way to mess around with anything new I want to learn. Pretty much anytime you see some useless widget appear somewhere on the site, it's because I'm trying to teach myself how to do that. If the server dies for a while, it's because I am messing with it.
Second, I like LiveJournal. For any jokes I might make about the inhabitants of LJ being a bunch of emo children whining to the Internet about their parents, I genuinely like the community, the software behind it, and the site in general. More than half of the sites that I read on a regular basis are in my Friend's List, and a lot of my daily readership comes from there too. I see no reason to leave, assuming they don't make any seriously distasteful changes.
