Sorry, I’m unclear. What specifically about the Ignore feature is allowing unwanted contact? That it has to be re-upped every 6 months?
The purpose of that is to keep nagging staff every so often about the problem user so they eventually deal with the problem user who {x} different users are simultaneously ignoring… e.g. ban that user.
This is still on the table as well. It’s fair to say after two six month re-ups by {x} different users that the complaint could be escalated further, or maybe the person is even auto-banned. 
It’s always encouraging when a business ignores and gaslights end users.
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How does the staff find out about serial harassers if the harasser keeps targeting a very small number of people, and if the harasser has threatened or intimidated those people? Yes, there’s the report button, and that might work , or it might end up getting the harasser just to make alts or use other methods to contact the victims?
Yes, in this case, the harasser was finally caught and finally asked to leave. But that doesn’t really empower people to feel safe, you know? “Eventually they’ll get asked to leave” doesn’t stop people from getting these things.
I don’t get why an ignore function being permanent is so antithetical to this service at this point. There’s already clear and present evidence that it would have helped someone avoid harassment, that a user seemed to wait and target, and that there are more than one victim here of this similar action.
Perhaps when someone is ignored by multiple people, all their PMs from themselves to those people should be auto-flagged, and then the user can be removed? Otherwise it’s clear the system as it stands did not do enough to protect the users.
You telling us all to leave, yeah?
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In the interests of harmony, I’m not opposed to adding an “allow forever ignores” option to site settings, if @orenwolf feels it will move things forward on the moderation side.
But I’m also not convinced it will address the root problems? I guess we could try it out, will take a little time to get in.
Here’s the problem. “Ignore” doesn’t mean that a harasser quits harassing me, it’s just that I can’t see it to say something about it.
A proper “block” feature would have prevented this user from being able to scrape and misrepresent that content because he would have been prevented from seeing it.
@orenwolf did a great job after the acceleration was brought to his attention. A proper block would have gone further in preventing the acceleration to start with.
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Exactly. Block and Ignore are two very different functions.
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Oh, my apologies. I misunderstood. A block function as in this user can’t see any of my posts, so a kind of forced mutual ignore. That’s a bit more complex… probably should be a different topic since this one is about ignore.
(also bear in mind if you do want to see someone’s posts in this Block scenario, all you need to do is view the site when you’re not logged in.)
What I can give you is the ability to indefinitely ignore someone, at least. You’ve convinced me. I’ll add that to our to-do list right now, and get an idea of how risky it is to put in this 2.5 release which is about to close up. If it can’t go in 2.5 it will be a few weeks out, but we’ll get it in there.
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We have to be careful with this mindset. I wouldn’t be surprised if both top ignored, and those ignoring, would intersect more often than not. To me, that suggests there are certain folks who just don’t get along well with each other without necessarily being a detriment to the community as a whole.
Worse, the top five ignored users currently are all people who have identified as women here. That, too, suggests to me that the ignore feature is likely as not being used to quiet contrarian opinions (i.e., “she persisted”), as much as it is to ignore legitimately disruptive users.
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I will say my experience with the ignore feature is to allow the maximum time and then see how things are in 4 months. There are a number of users I had ignored over time that are no longer ignored and I generally avoid them on my end to avoid the obvious disagreements that lead to the initial ignoring; and there are a couple wherein I am reminded why I ignored them in the first place and re-up it.
I agree with other users pointing out that being able to actually block someone needs to be a thing. The ignore feature is not adequate to that task as it stands today.
As to the idea that someone not having a block feature but having the ignore helps the staff see who the problem children are and dump them…well, that’s quite frankly bullshit. That leaves the users open to being harassed and accepting of negativity just to help shine a light on the “bad apples” yeah, that’s not the responsibility of end users.
There need to be tools that users can use that help notify the staff (like reporting, ignoring, AND blocking). If I block someone…sure its probably just me and Player X not seeing eye to eye…but if 20 of us block Player X…maybe someone needs to look into Player X’s behavior…without us all having to put up with them.
In reading not just replies here, but replies from some of the same folks in other threads in the past…I find it rather troubling that we have the same voices continually asking for the same features and continually being told in essence…“go pound sand”.
A community should be listened to and movement should be made to install features that serve that community. Otherwise that is a broken community.
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This. I’m not sure I know anyone in meatspace who doesn’t rub someone else wrong just for existing. I have friends who are great people yet dislike or even despise each other.
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Same. Certain sections of my friends just don’t get on well together, but get the mix right…
Obviously, for certain times, I’m probably the problem. That’s life.
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That’s another prime example of why a real block feature is needed; it helps ‘keep the peace’ between members who don’t get along but who otherwise are abiding by the forum’s rules.
I genuinely appreciate every single person who currently has me on Ignore (when it works) rather than trying to come at me crazy all the time, just because we dislike one another.
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A block feature wouldn’t work here, because posts are public - all you have to do to see the posts is log out.
I did recently change profile information to only be available to logged-in users, because I can’t see why an anonymous user would legitimately use that, but as the comments system for Boing Boing, the vast majority of users view the BBS logged out, not logged-in, and a block feature would have no effect on them.
I do believe, however, that having the ignore feature reliably hide a user from your universe is useful, especially with an indefinite duration option.
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hol’ up.
I am going to use @Melizmatic and I as an example. Completely plausible but not something we actually did.
So Mel and I but heads and I flame her “omg yer an idiot” she gets understandably miffed and lashes back “Q…YOU are the idiot”. Now. I DM her and start verbally berating her “How dare you call me an idiot…you can’t do that!” round it goes…Mel says “ok dude…blocked”. Now sure I can log out and see what Mel says in posts…BUT…I am still blocked. And I cannot reply or message, etc until I log back in.
So how would the block feature not work here?
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I concur with your example. (And actually, we did butt heads a few years back, but that’s totally beside the point.)
Personally, I don’t care if someone can log out and still see my posts; that’s kind of the nature of any public site on the net.
What we are asking for is the ability block unwanted comments addressed directly to us, either in the public forums or in private messages.
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Adding each other to ignore would prevent you both from DMing each other. In fact, even just muting a user prevents them from DMing you.
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We have on more than one occasion and that’s ok. Disagreeing is fine, it happens.
What doesn’t and shouldn’t happen is harassment and targeting. Ignore works fine to take a break…block stops the H&T.
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Agreed.
There are just some people with whom I never want to interact, ever; regardless that they are not breaking any rules. And I’m sure there are people who feel the same exact way about me, and that’s fine…
As long as the public forums exist, everyone can still post their own opinion (as long as it falls within the stated guidelines of the site) so claiming that a true block feature would somehow impede the general flow of conversation seems to be inaccurate…
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The users on my (relatively short) Ignore list are less people I don’t get along with than people whose consistently ignorant and/or disingenuous and/or off-topic comments actively detract from the value of the BBS for me. Being able to place them on permanent Ignore would be a great feature, and I’m glad it’s in the pipeline.
How about a feature that prevents an Ignored user from replying to a comment by the Ignorer (and/or from referencing the Ignorer by @ call or Quote)? That would effectively complete the concept that the Ignoree is someone who doesn’t exist for the Ignorer on the BBS in the context of Topic sub-threads (sub-topics?) while still allowing the Ignored to respond in a more general way (which response won’t be seen by the Ignorer).
[You’d also want to incorporate some sort of modal warning box that would pop up when an Ignoree replied to or quoted an Ignorer, so the Ignoree would have fair warning that the reply wouldn’t post]
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