To be clear, the “free ice cream” comes from Boing Boing, who does not have the ability to make this (or any other) code change. 
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“Be the change that you wish to see in the world.” ~ Mahatma Gandhi
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If that’s the case, I find it even more odd that the designer of the feature assumes it would take its user 4 months (or even a week!) to “cool down”. That’s not making generous assumptions about the feature’s users. Also, if that were true it would seem odd that mods get back-end feedback about the much-Ignored as potential problems but not the Ignorers.
In any case, the name of the feature isn’t “Cool Down”, it’s “Ignore”. In practise, that’s how most people use it: so that they don’t have to see the comments of users they find obnoxious or annoying but who persist despite their behaviour (in my experience they’re the sneaks and rules lawyers who know how to take things right up to the edge without getting banned). Orenwolf himself told us that if a person consistently rubs you the wrong way then Ignoring him is an option.
I have fewer than ten users “permanently” on the list at any one time. They’re not there for their views (which I often lean toward) but the crappy way they express themselves. By the time 4 months rolls around, at least a third of them have gotten themselves banned or (like the thirsty man-baby I mentioned above) have anonymised their accounts and started anew. But there are a handful (maybe 3 or 4) that get re-Ignored again and again.
I focus my flagging activity on alerting the mods to tr0lls who don’t know how to game the system and the rules. I can’t really flag for obnoxious, bad-faith behaviour that manages to stay within the rules.
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I think people already set up little cliques via PM (or external channels), so why not just let them permanetly ignore if they want to?
I’d rather see that than people waiting with baited breath for someone to “screw up” (often coupled with aggressive language) so they can mass flag them.
People will form cliques if they want to.
Since my outlook is that the main function of a full block feature would be being able to entirely ignore them, I can’t see the downside of their persecution complexes for anyone except them and those who have yet to block them. I really don’t mean to be harsh, but no one should be entitled to anyone else’s attention.
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This really isn’t a problem. Flags come from all sorts of users, and the vast majority are against obvious diruptive users (who are often new arrivals of late) rather than old-time users who suddenly changed their online persona.
More than half of the top ignored users are posting in this topic, so it’s not a matter of worrying about flags unless most of you intend to devolve into miscreants in short order.
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Psssst…
The ‘ice cream’ is actually certain people here; BB is the ice cream stand that’s ‘giving it away for free.’
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That’s called “brigading”, a behaviour which is highly frowned upon by the community here but which could be used to abuse other features like flagging (although there’s a safeguard against it built in there). How would the time limit on Ignores prevent that from happening?
If that’s the feeling, it’s not reflected in the back-end feedback to the moderators as far as I know. Nor is it something the mods in this particular instance seem to care about. Those who are being Ignored by a large number of people, in contrast, are brought to the attention of the mod.
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Wait, there are other people posting in this topic? I can’t see any…
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Using discourse on another community , of which I’m an admin (not under this name, or really anything that is open, per se), mods get both the people who are ignored and the people who ignore and a whole lot of other “behind the scenes community control /encouragement features.” It’s got those safeguards that you describe in flagging all over its codebase and there’s a lot of little behind the scenes things going on in the code to admins and mods that help ferret out problem users in the community very quickly.
It’s a very opinionated codebase on the kind of structure it wants to create, and with regards to interpersonal communications in a community the design decisions were and are very intently made to foster very specific results.
Thanks for the additional info. That still doesn’t answer the question of how the 4-month limit on Ignores prevents or even discourages brigading.
Also, as noted, the mod on this site doesn’t seem to care about the individuals doing the Ignoring, but (as noted in his comment above) is very aware of who the top Ignored users are at any given time.
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Wait until you find out about our secret underground lair, where we plot against you, specifically.
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[Joking aside, that kind of narcissistic paranoia has been exhibited in the meta topics here for years. Usually by the kind of problematic users who also tend to find themselves Ignored by large numbers of other users.]
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I can’t speak for Jeff or the Discourse team, but I think the general opinion there is that permanantly ignoring people is a sign of a breakdown in communication and the signs of a bad community.
Ok, but that has nothing to do with preventing brigading. Also, many healthy communities have members who have deliberately and specifically made the choice to permanently ignore other members for the sake of keeping the peace, and vice-versa. Which is the point that people are making here regarding permanent Ignores and/or Twitter-style blocks.
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I care about who is being ignored. I do not pretend to (nor would I ever want) to have any influence on who folks choose to read, including users they opt to ignore for any reason. It’s a plurality of users ignoring a single user that is the signal of a potential bad actor in the works - for which I am happy to have an existing automated report to alert me of such.
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Ignore is such an important socially healthy alternative to confrontation with people who will be more trouble than it is worth to spend time around. But some people are sooo wounded by it. “Noooo you can’t ignore me!” Toxic. I love ignore and am glad it was implemented. I’m literally grateful for anyone who ignores me rather than risk dragging us both into a pointless argument. Just… Hard to relate to people who see it as a punishment.
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The “free ice cream” is the people here. Boingboing is the ice cream stand. Discourse is the cone.
EtA: we could go back to Disqus, but that’s the little paper cup that nobody wants
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I think that’s more of a Reddit thing than a Boing Boing thing
I very rarely use it since even the most problematic users occasionally get their act together and make a useful post, but that’s my philosophy, I think it’s perfectly reasonable for the “nope, block” style of interaction to be supported.
