we had a thread about similar ideas. it didn’t gain any kind of traction ;_;
What I would like is a little demon that sits on my shoulder and says, “No, that one should not be posted.” Can you do something like that?
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I have the other demon, unfortunately.
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I think the reason that one failed to gain traction is that it was too open-ended and didn’t have what everyone could see as a clear purpose. Mine has all that and more! The more being pirate theme. 
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right, of course. totally different :^)
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I don’t like how the like/flag/reply area of a post is faded unless my cursor is above that post. I find it distracting.
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Is it possible for me to block a specific user from sending me PM’s? (or more to the point, to prevent me from receiving said)
Is it possible to hide by default or “ignore” specific users? Assuming these aren’t currently possible, could they be please? 
For PM blocking, yes that is planned. But “hide this user from me”, no.
As always, if someone is rude or cruel, per the site guidelines, I recommend flagging their posts for moderator attention.
Thanks CH. I think an ignore / hide user function might solve many
moderation problems. No clue how hard that would be to code, or what the
social / freespeechening ramifications might be, but its a function I would
use.
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Well, as with many design choices of traditional forum software that seem on the surface to be correct, offering a user mute is problematic on a few different levels.
TL;DR if you have users that others feel “need” to be blocked, they should probably be gently asked to leave your community. Treat the disease, not the symptom.
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Not always. Sometimes it’s a matter of bad chemistry between two individuals, who tend to push each others’ buttons. In that case, it is often a good solution (for them and for the community) for one or both of them to remove the temptation to interact directly with each other.
Can’t force you to implement it. But I think there are legitimate uses.
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Perhaps, but I have a hard time getting behind the “if we could just get rid of that damn cookie jar!” theory of dieting.
Understood, but I think you’re postulating ideal human beings.
Edit: And I think you’ve got the wrong end of the cost/benefit curve. But that’s a judgement call. Your system, your code, your problem.
Additional edit: BTW, categories seem to have vanished from the BBS contents pages. (You’re probably already aware of that, but just in case.)
All I can really offer you is that one or both users could be banned from the forum for a set period of time, either voluntarily or… not… voluntarily.
Nice thread, as was the thread you referenced within. Thanks again CH.
Edit - After further thought, codinghorror have you got, or would you consider making, a list of “I make online communities, and here are some relevant threads to issues” available?
Understood. Oh well. It’s a sometimes-useful tool, but we can manage without it. Thanks for considering, anyway; I’ll stop pestering you about it.
the quote-replies are broken up so the username is separate from the quote:
That was an artifact of some recent design changes, should be fixed now!
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As per here, I’d like to suggest that the user trust level might be augmented to show whether someone is active or suspended. It seems the case on that thread was based at least partly on PMs, which mean someone can violate standards without it being visible; I think it would prevent some confusion if one could at least see what resulted.
Likewise in the example I gave way back here, codinghorror argued against leaving offensive material in the thread, and noted that if it’s a pattern we can trust the moderators will know. Which is fair enough, but it occurs to me that if it comes to the point someone is no longer welcome here, a status indicator would not be so obtrusive but still assure people the problem has been dealt with.
Would it not work with the general approach here?
As noted in another thread, the principle they’re trying to use here is “user is in a Time Out”, rather than “user is suspended”. Making that more visible has drawbacks as well as advantages.
