I don’t think I understand what the term means here. Does several people not wanting to interact with you compel the thousands of users here to do the same?
It just sounds like some guy feels entitled to force you to interact with him. Not sure how one defends that idea.
No, not at all.
My mute list is currently at zero. It’s likely to stay at zero unless I feel actively threatened (knock on wood). However, I do not begrudge people the opportunity to use something like this, and see a use for it far beyond screening out diverging opinions. In fact, opinion doesn’t seem to enter into the equation at all for me.
I think “entitled” sums it up. I am entitled to hold my opinion, but no one else is required to give a damn about them, and ignoring me is a lot less confrontational than getting in my face. Tends to make for a more civilized establishment, IMHO.
One other point:
Freedom of speech also doesn’t compel me to have to listen to you. Yes, anybody that follows the guidelines is welcome, but that doesn’t mean I’m required to engage with them.
In any even freedom of speech doesn’t apply here at the BBS. There’s strict guidelines as to what’s forbidden here (including, yes, points of view) and it’s heavily moderated. Even someone that otherwise follows the rules can be banned at any time for any reason.
God forbid that happens- contact the mod immediately. I’m sure he’ll address that with virtual extreme prejudice.
But it’s the kind of thing some of us have to consider everywhere we go - and some just don’t seem to be able to grok that experience.
I wonder about that too. I also wonder what effect ignoring someone has on their behavior, especially if they don’t know they’re being ignored. When a comment is flag-worthy, it gets flagged, and the commenter knows they’ve behaved badly. But just being ignored does give the commenter any feedback about their behavior. And while some might do it rarely, I have a feeling that some will do it quite liberally. And personally, I don’t want to read any comment by anyone who’s ignoring me. Maybe some transparency in who’s ignoring who. Would help that.
Just speaking for myself, if I were to mute someone, they would know they were being muted, and they would know what they did to get muted.
You’re not getting the difference between an individual and the group.
There are all sorts of reasons why one particular poster can anger/frustrate/cause a near-fatal eye roll to one or two other people, but not the entire group. Personal differences exist online as they do IRL. There are just some people you don’t want to listen to at a party. Or maybe they’re your ex. Or they remind you of your ex. You don’t like how angry you get when you read their posts, because there’s something that triggers your PTSD.
So, you set them to “ignore”.
If someone is posting flag-worthy comments, there are still thousands of other people on this forum who will see it and flag. You don’t have to be the one who flags every single problematic post for them to get properly flagged when needed. You’re just one of thousands.
I’d like to think BB is the bar that bans that guy 
I’m not sure that’s a good idea. I mute people (not block) on Twitter because of the meltdowns seeing a block can generate
Not sure if serious or not but that comes off as very arrogant and tone deaf.
Yeah - that’s really for the publishers to say.
Maybe, but…
That’s your prerogative. No one is forced to read what others write. If not reading what a specific user writes keeps a user from simply leaving the BBS altogether, then that’s a net benefit. No one is obligated to post here, or read the BBS.
We have zero interest in forcing anyone to talk to, or read, anything from anyone they do not wish to.
Stealing Sir Paul.
True.
Ok nobody is forcing anyone to do anything on the first place. People have a choice to visit, read and post here.
We’re not just talking about someone being able to not read something they don’t want to, were taking about someone being able to avoid being challenged. We’re talking about someone, in the most extreme case, being able to spout their nonsense and literally not see any negative response.
The way I see it, this is a public forum, and if people want to talk, they have to be willing to listen. We can have rules about conduct, but not listening should not be an option.
All that said, I think this place has become much nastier than it was before. In some cases that may stop new people from joining or participating. If having an ignore feature helps makes this place more civil, or rather, have the appearance of being civil because all the nastiness can be hidden, then maybe it’s a worth a try.
Doesn’t happen. I think you underestimate the number of posters here.
Doesn’t happen. Flagging has not decreased with the introduction of the ignore feature.
Also: moderators are notified when users are ignored by a large number of other users, to allow us to take appropriate action.
There is literally no other medium I can think of where this is true. You can walk away from someone at a party you don’t want to talk to. Or on the street, or in your group of friends, or on any of the social media platforms.
This mindset strikes me as one that would arise from never being the subject of online harassment or bullying.
I’ll make it clear: there is no fucking way we would ever force through a technical measure, policy, ”peer pressure”, etc. people to read or be forced to respond to others comments. Do you read anything posted on Boing Boing? About the number of people who are hounded and harassed and are unable to escape those who would harass others, label them as ”toxic” to a community, be intentionally contrarian just to stir the pot, or any number of folks who just want to disrupt the place.
For many, many people, posting inline isn’t a social experiment. It’s a place where choosing to share personal information about themselves, be it beliefs, gender identity, political affiliation or any number of other triggers that may lead to both the mental anguish of bullying or disparagement in those same online spaces, or worse, real-world targeting by asshats.
We will not contribute to that here. This is a moderated forum where everyone has a right to speak. No one has a right to be read. Just like every other public forum, I can think of.
This topic was started from a discussion of how to surface unpopular positions or statements in a way that they can be read and responded to instead of ignored or buried under a wall of disagreement. I said at the beginning that I did not believe there was a technological fix to this phenomenon, but I sure as shit know the solution isn’t to force people to read and respond to comments.
Damn - didn’t think I’d get to use it so soon.
Edit:
That’s interesting to know. Thank you for sharing.
