Topic: So, You Can Now Ignore Users

Really? I felt certain that Alex Olney and Jon Cartwright blocked me long ago...

Ok, my profile says Kermit is now blocked. So I suppose it does work.

I’ll give it some minutes to see if they return and notice it 😅

@Link-Hero There's an interesting loophole. You can ignore AND block mods if they post on any of the sister sites, where they're not listed as a moderator.

For example, I just blocked @Eel on PureXbox. All of their posts also disappeared for me on NL. It should also mean that they're unable to see any of my posts now.

I'll unblock them soon, but someone should tag them and ask them, because I'm genuinely curious if this means they can't see my posts.

Ok that’s weird. I see Ralizah has the most recent comment but the comment is not showing.

I’ve read their comment though, by using incognito mode on the browser. I assume this is a glitch then! I’m blocked but not completely so.

(I assume a correctly blocked person would be unable to see the name in the most recent comment)

@Eel I saw that you'd posted the most recent comment, so I logged out and read your comment, then logged back in and unblocked you, since it seems the experiment was successful, lol.

I've never blocked anyone, so I'm not sure to what extent it completely removes your presence from the blocked person's UI.

Dunno if mods having more... erm... 'powers' than the average user factors into it, either.

I’m almost 99% certain it shouldn’t show blocked or ignored people as the most recent post.

It’s either the process being glitched due to using a sister site as a middleman, or my user type is cancelling that aspect of it.

Either way I’m sure Ant will probably want to look into it.

Hey just to chime in here, it does still update you that a person has posted last in a thread if you have them ignored or blocked, you just can't see that post when you go into that thread. It's usually the main way I find out I've been ignored by somebody.

@Pizzamorg I asked about that and I was told that it is intended to be like that otherwise you will not see threads created from users that blocked you. Lovely system right?

So that system works a bit differently. If you have ignored blocked or been ignored or blocked by a thread creator, that original post isn't hidden because then the whole thread disappears.

If I have say ignored or blocked you and then I post in this thread last, you won't be able to see my post when you click into the thread, but you will be able to see in the forum index I was the last person to post in this thread 'Last post 4 mins ago by Pizzamorg'. So if you then click into the thread and no post is there, this is how you find out you've been ignored or blocked.

Ah so it is indeed supposed to work like that then

Seems a bit odd. No wonder blocked people are constantly anxious about it, they can very easily tell they’ve been blocked/know something is missing.

@Pizzamorg I usually find when I am being ignored and reverse ignored when I see someone respond to a user and I do not see the other user's post.

You will always see the last user that has posted in a thread on the recently posted on the main page of the site. But when you click on it you will be redirected to the top of the page in the thread because you have been IGNORED!

@Eel That is why I think the system is not good! The normal ignore function was just fine. You will never see the other peoples posts. And the reverse ignore function just adds more confusion and problems. And both functions can easily be avoided by going incognito mode.

It is one of the flaws of the current form of the feature. The forum actively lets you know users are shutting you out of a conversation, because quotes and @s still show up as well as notifications on the forum index. It makes it hard to fight the temptation to just log out and see what the conversation is about.

Admittedly, I don't really know how you get around this. A feature like this works on say Twitter, because Twitter is just a massive void. When a person comes at you on there and you choose to mute them, they are just gone, basically.

But here, when it is a fairly small group of regular posters all posting in the same handful of threads, things really start breaking down when you start ignoring multiple users or are being ignored by multiple users.

The feature still should exist for it's intended purposes, but I wish the forum had a way of scrubbing a person entirely, so you don't feel like you're being shut behind a two way mirror. Every time a person who is or has ignored blocked is quoted, @ or posts in a thread, this shouldn't show up at all in my mind - other than when they create a thread. But I dunno whether that is possible within the forum tools.

@Pizzamorg You might as well log out, because I don’t think there will be a fix anytime soon, I don’t do it but I wouldn’t care if other did if I had them in ignore, as of now I only have one.

Not log out as in leave, as in the system is fixed to I guess accounts, not IPs. So you can just log out, surf a thread as a guest and see all the users who you ignored or ignored you. Which kinda renders the whole thing pointless, if it is to protect users.

Edit: Also people often come into this thread, who don't really use the feature and just say 'I don't care' and belittle the real issues, which really doesn't help things, as you can't see the functional problems if you only ignore one person or are ignored by one person.

Well, I thought I would have at least one reply...

@Eel So, here's my take.

Ignoring is great. Beautiful. I love it. People should absolutely be able to control whose posts they see, and it can tremendously improve the experience of browsing these sites. Once I put a certain number of people who annoyed the heck out of me on ignore, my experience was improved significantly. It costs them nothing, and makes the experience better for me as a whole.

But blocking gives you control over the browsing experience of someone else, and, IMO, it's too much power for anyone to have at a click of a button. You said you could see how it would be distressing, but I know for a fact it can be, because, on one of the sister sites, I watched a long-time member actually leave once another long-time member who posts a lot blocked them, which cut them out of conversations and made them feel like an outsider.

I've heard the excuse that if you simply leave the ignore function up, someone can skirt around it or talk behind your back or whatever, the but the same is still technically true of blocking if you use incognito mode or log out.

I guess I'd say that blocking should still be a feature, but one locked behind moderator/admin intervention. If I've ignored someone, but they're being a nuisance and directing comments at posts I've made, I should be able to appeal to an admin and have them investigate the situation and block the person if there's a pattern of interaction that's making me feel uneasy.

But I think people will oftentimes just block other users they don't like without giving it a second thought.

You can yes but just having the person on ignore prevents you from seeing their posts on Article pages but you can still see their posts if you choose to visit their Profile. Blocking is also possible only after you've ignored someone and that prevents both of you from seeing each others posts all over this site and the other 2 sister sites Push Square and Pure Xbox. On my old account I had nobody on ignore but since coming back on this one unfortunately I now have 20 people on ignore with 15 of them blocked. It's a shame I had to resort to that but these individuals were just grating on my nerves.

I'm glad they added block because before you could only ignore and as mentioned above it makes the experience far better for us. Next I think posts where somebody mentions a person you ignored or ignored/blocked should be hidden too. You know when you're commenting on an Article and you see someone mention the person? yeah I think posts like that should be hidden too because you've added that name to the ignore list or ignore and block list.

I’m sure all this new feedback and reports that there’s a workaround to ignore/block moderators and possibly even members of staff will be useful for @antdickens

@Ralizah @Eel thanks for spotting the bug, I'll fix that tomorrow, meaning you can't ignore any staff/mods via sister sites

With respect - I vehemently disagree. The approach you're advocating here is profoundly open to abuse, first of all. Are we to believe that the mere sight of a person's username is going to be so upsetting and destabilizing that we can't use this site in peace? We may have blocked a person, but we don't need this kind of crazy revisionist disappearing of them entirely.

I have a pretty long ignore list, but that doesn't mean I want to lose the input of others just because they're addressing someone I no longer converse with!