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Absolutely. Asking not to be engaged by someone doesn’t mean we now become children and make passive-aggressive remarks like “well someone ruined the fun for us…”
Common sense here folks. If you don’t want to engage someone, don’t. Not even in the abstract. If you feel that hasn’t happened, PM me, but be warned, I’m not playing the paranoia game either: if I have to read the tea leaves to see the “connection”, you’re not going to succeed. Putting more work on the backs of the mod team is rarely a recipe for success.
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Again, this situation affects a tiny number of people, and has zero impact on the userbase at large. If someone has been asked not to engage, I’m fairly certain PMs to mods were involved in most every case and the situation made explicit.
To all: this isn’t the place to discuss specific issues with specific agreements. PM me if there’s a need to discuss further.
Rob’s point stands. Please respect someone’s wishes here as you would in any public interaction so the mod team doesn’t have to get involved. I can virtually guarantee the result of our involvement will not result in a more favourable outcome.
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This topic was automatically opened after 4 hours.
Take New Year break moderators, enjoy short film.
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That’s an interesting post, Rob!
Paradoxically, perhaps - it makes the net a justice-free wild-west, even in camps who are critical of centralization, unaccountability, biased arbitration, etc in daily life. It seems cynical to say “My site obviously can’t actually have unambiguous rules, penalties or appeals.” while idealistically pushing for these things “IRL” in workplaces, business, and government. I suspect that it is lawyer culture which advises those who run largeish internet forums as semi-transparent dictatorships where it is guaranteed that those who run the site always get their way in the end. It seems to create a day-to-day microculture where there is no real expectation of democracy. I see the power of the internet as not being able to embody the strengths and weaknesses of contemporary bureaucracy, but that it can enable us to do better.
I think that this is an artifact of a cultural climate of framing rules, law, justice, etc as innately adversarial. Not unlike how US courts are concerned about which party wins, rather than ant deeper truth of what may have actually happened. That philosophy informs the structure of their organizations and rules. As somebody who basically does not have personal/interpersonal relationships, I find it easy to see other options. Like for rules and enforcement to be more a case of establishing protocols, recognizing best-practices within a given domain, rather than any sort of contest.
I don’t use Twitter, but for better or worse, that last bit might be the closest I have read to how I feel about interacting with people generally. For me, altruism has always meant not playing favorites. I realized at a young age that it is easy to help those one feels attachment to. The challenge is to eschew attachment and help people anyway. It seems egotistical for me to assume that how much compassion a person needs would be determined by how much I like them.
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Since I got pinged-
I rarely use curse words, I don’t respond to people who I don’t want to talk to, and if someone asks me not to address them or to leave a topic, I do so regardless of how I feel about that person.
I will break all the above rules if someone is libelling me or calling me out. Don’t start swinging if you can’t take a punch!
Those are the rules I try to follow in all human interaction. I mostly succeed.
I’m really better with cats, though.
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Where’s Harry?
On the larger topic, if someone says No to you, respect the No. This isn’t hard.
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For me it helps that I have long excepted that IRL and the 'net, there is a maximum Mister.44 exposure time for most people. A little bit may range from fun to tolerable, but it generally gets to “rather not” eventually…
Conversely, if I don’t want to talk to you anymore, I’d like you to disengage, and why wouldn’t I extend the same courtesy?
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Yeah, I come off strong/opinionated/goofy as well. And it isn’t rude or a put down to disengage.
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This isn’t true and does not make sense.
Anyone can reply to the topic and discuss the ideas and concepts in the topic, without
- directly quoting someone’s post
- directly
@namementioning someone - directly pressing the reply button on someone’s post
It is really quite easy to follow those guidelines if asked to. Press the reply button on the topic (at the bottom of the topic, or on the right under the vertical timeline) rather than pressing reply on the post of someone who has asked you not to interact with them.
If anyone says “I literally cannot stop replying directly to someone when I am politely asked to” that is frankly BS and a strong sign that person needs to be suspended.
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I cannot stress the point above enough. Sometimes we make mistakes, or perhaps other circumstances led us in good-faith-yet-bad-application to engage in a less polite way, but we can be civil.
Let’s strive to be polite, respectful, and honest. No means no.
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Hey, some folks use your software to prosecute ‘likes’ - though not at this implementation.
Ones creation, it can get away from one!
I understand this. But what you are saying is: Just reply to what the person said without letting them know you replied to them and all will be great.
So this is just about notifications? As long as there are no notifications involved, that constitutes non-engagement? Ok…
EDIT: Assuming the “reply” is otherwise substantively non-problematic, of course.
That’s not a fair characterization of the situation. This did not come about because I was pelting someone with unwanted messages and replies.
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This has been an informative and interesting discussion. I appreciate it being allowed to be a thread.
Obviously there’s no one approach to things, or one answer to how to have a bbs. Each of us can see only a part of the whole picture from the corner that we’re in. Put it all together, though, and things become more clear. I appreciate the time that people take here to inform, sort out, and clarify things. I appreciate everyone’s posts here.
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Just stop, dude.
Discourse was built with the idea that people are fundamentally good in mind. The reason a mute function was so long coming is because the Discourse devs are good people who stop bugging when asked. Adding an easy mute button would have resulted in fragmented forums of polarized people. You’ve seen the cesspool that Facebook is.
Cafè aficionados, for the most part, have survived intact because we’re able to respect boundaries. And where human ability fail, we’ve gone out of our way to gently moderate - which is what lovable halfing Rob tried - before taking further action.
(When the broflake whatshisname here was complaining about weeemeeen, I stopped reply when requested, even though he was completely wrong)
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really? do you think that because the replies and @-mentions are from you they must be inherently “wanted?” is this the kind of person you are in real life? you just keep on talking to someone even when they’ve asked you to stop. you have a very idiosyncratic approach to courtesy if that’s the case. me, if someone clearly tells me to leave them alone. i do it, i don’t go complaining to one of the hosts of the gathering that someone else is being mean to me because they won’t listen, i just leave them alone.
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You’ve just been arguing with one of the site’s authors, its main moderator, and now one of the main developers of its commenting system. All have presented what is essentially the same position from different viewpoints. Since they’ve had little success conveying that concept to you in a way you can grasp, may I suggest that you argue with the site’s publisher (Jason Weisberger) as well? He’s always very … responsive to people who express your level of dissatisfaction with the site.
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