Me: But it doesn’t actually seem to do anything.
Disqus Support: Well, nothing substantial, no. The work-arounds on our bans are actually so simple that even a complete bozo can figure them out. But, still, it sends a strong social signal.
Me: But no actual technical fix. Like, to prevent …
DS: Look, we realize you might need to use that “ban” feature multiple times, maybe even several times a day initially. But most people will get the hint. What kind of person would it take to ignore that? No normal, healthy person would ever get so perversely fixated. How socially maladaptive, twisted, lonely and desperate would someone need to be to want to keep posting after …
Me: This is a real probl–
DS: I mean the mix of pathologies and social inadequacies that would require. I suppose if there were a total narcissist and misanthrope who was nonetheless desperate for human connection — someone who’d been deprived of love and meaningful relationships since childhood, some stalker-ish obsessive immune to the basic social skills we’ve all learned since birth, someone utterly incapable of even the simplest of social interactions — it’s possible that some such tiny minority of warped individuals would exploit the simple work-arounds in our technically inadequate ban feature. But how many such people could there possibly be?
Me: Have you ever met the Internet?
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