Its called IP banning.
The ability block a particular person or group of people from reading my journal based on their IP address. A handy little feature I get for being a spiffy dland Super Gold member. At first, I could never take advantage of this feature because I could never get ahold of anyones IP address unless they left a comment for me on my journal. Thanks to my new hit counter, I now get more information about my readers than ever before...and all they have to do is visit my site.
I've been complaining for quite a few months now about all the unwanted visitors I get on a regular basis. No, I'm not talking about all the strangers that happen across my journal from various links scattered across the world wide web. I'm not talking about my fellow journalers that some how thought my journal was worth while reading, although there aren't that many of those to begin with. Let me explain...
This whole thing started with Dan and his girlfriend Mary took extreme offense to an entry I had written about Dan supposedly hating me. Why they took offense to the entry itself, I'm not quite sure. Anyways...after a discussion with Dan, his girlfriend started harassing me online. From there, I was able to find a link to her online journal, which eventually introduced me to my brand new stats counter.
I started out by banning Dan and his girlfriend, since they seem to be too wrapped up in their own little world to care about anyone elses feelings. Then after monitoring the activity on my site for a few days, I was able to ban quite a few more unwanted pests. This list includes Tom's mother's work, Tom's whole house (he can only read my site when he's at my place,) Tom's older brother, Tom's younger brothers fiance's work, and I think Faye (I hope, I hope, I hope, I hope.) I'm still getting really weird local hits that I have yet to identify....but hopefully soon I will be rid of all those incredibly nosey readers who have no business being here.
If any of the local readers care to identify themselves by leaving a comment for me, that would be great.
All of this seems a bit confusing, I know. But I decided to take the long, confusing route to getting rid of all these people because I didn't like the alternatives. I could have just kept on writing and letting them read everything and passing judgement on me day after day after day. I could have locked up the entire diary, letting in only those with the password...but I decided against that because I enjoy having people wander into my journal from somewhere in the vast internet. I still cling to the hope that someone reading this will give me the kind words and support (and maybe have the answer to life for me) that I so desperately crave. I can't do that with my journal locked up, now can I?
Hopefully dadeeli.diaryland.com will be a safe place for my thoughts and my writing from now on...