"Do you think it's possible...?"

Speaking of "my jones"...har har...
My January has checked in again with a musing worth mulling. (And it's not like we have anything more presseing to write about here! FOOEY!)

"Do you think it's possible that after your visitor last weekend the spam filters have been tightened up on Ellen and friends?"

Thank you for putting this on the table. For those just tuning in (or tuning back in), January is talking about this major ELLENWatch development on which we're trying to be discreet out of respect to Corporette, whence most of our fodder comes these days.


My immediate reaction was no. Our best evidence shows that the relevant authority enjoys Ellen enough to allow her to maintain some presence on the site. The filters mentioned, I surmise, are more about maintaining some kind of check/control, lest the troll take over or readers coalesce around annoyance with her and start taking their traffic elsewhere.


I also suspect that a flat-out ban has always been possible, a la ABA Journal site, and that if this was what _______ wanted she would have implemented it long ago. I also think that if she had effectively taken this action this week, she would have announced it (again, a la ABA). I will even go so far as to say that I wish she would make such an announcement, if applicable. I know she doesn't owe her readers anything, especially in this peculiar context, but if this blog enabled her to pin down all of Ellen's IP addresses I would have at least liked to know that it was (indirectly) used for a ban. (This scenario has almost a classical tragedy air about it: "ELLENWatch loved Ellen so much that she facilitated a compleat BAN of all her post's? TRIPLE FOOEY FOR ALL TIME!") 


Finally, we have Jill. Jill is either Ellen or another poster whose IP address is just as identifiable. Why did Jill still get through several times if a total ban had been imposed? (But what if Jill hasn't been PTOOEYing over the last few days because she, too, was rooted out once _______ was able to identify her?) 


The more I thought about it, the less I believed we could rule out January's suggestion. 


But then...as I was writeing this very post...no need to mull any further.


:)