Topic: So, You Can Now Ignore Users

Umm you know that's how the block tool works on Facebook right?, well more or less. You can't see any trace of the person at all so I genuinely don't understand how such a thing can be open to abuse when the only way to make a person disappear (lol that doesn't sound right but anyway) is to add them to ignore then block them afterwards.

@RubyCarbuncle You do realize that this is a forum and not a social network right? People are here because of Nintendo products.

Nintendo Life =/= Facebook, Twitter, Reddit etc.

@CANOEberry @RubyCarbuncle I think you can agree to disagree.

I’ve made clear before why the feature exists and I’m happy they provide features that are useful. I wouldn’t call it perfect, but better than them not existing at all.

@Zuljaras plenty of other forum software have similar mute/block features, not just social networks.

LOL Come on, my friend. I think we can aim a little higher with our community standards than Facebook, hahaha.

Consider this: I block RudeUser123. If a person whose comments and posts I like (say, Ralizah, just for example) just happens to reply to RudeUser123, I won't see Ralizah's comment, though I generally always want to. Why should I lose the freedom to read Ralizah while losing RudeUser123 at the same time? If Ralizah isn't directly quoting RudeUser123, and is giving a brilliant rebuttal, I don't see how that harms me.

If people know that someone is blocking RudeUser123, they can just include that name in their comment/post in order to sneakily block someone. Do you see what I mean?

@antdickens Sorry - which features in particular did you mean? I arrived late to this discussion...

@antdickens Sure but they are sites with millions of users and there are targeted attack there. Here I have never seen anything like that besides some new trolls that post one hateful thing and they are gone.

Hiding your own posts (for me at least) is because you know you are doing something irritating or spam and you know that regulars will report you to the moderators.

This is the ONLY thing I do not like about this feature.

You can say that there are lots of people and they will react but we all know this is not 100% true.

@CANOEberry I’m just talking about the ignore features in general.

However I believe there is merit in what RubyCarbuncle is suggesting. It all comes down to personal preference and different people will ignore/block people for different reasons. I can see the rationale behind wanting to hide posts that merely mention/reply people on my ignore list, it would make things more complete. I can also see why people wouldn’t want that, which is why it’s the way it is now.

I actually think having a toggle (maybe on a per user basis) to hide mentions/quotes as well would be the solution, but ultimately it’s probably a step to far for now and I’m content to keep them as they are.

And by agree to disagree, that’s exactly what I’m saying, you both have valid views but they don’t align, which is ok.

@Zuljaras I’d be pretty sure it’s a very, very small number of people (if any) who have blocked you from seeing their posts and if they have it’ll be likely because of something you said that they disagree with, not because they trying to post spam. You can only block a limited number of users therefore it would be a pretty bad way to try and post spam.

@antdickens Thank you for clarifying. I agree that a toggle would be best, but I don't know how hard that would be to implement. Live and let live, I guess.

@antdickens I am sorry. By spam I meant spamming the same opinion over and over because well ... people are entitled to their opinions

And the smaller userbase, especially in the forums, matter

Anyway just like you said, let's agree to disagree.

@Ralizah @Eel OK that loophole should now be fixed, it will check when you try to ignore someone if they are a staff member on another site and prevent it. I've also removed all ignores that managed to use the loophole. I'll see if there is a way in future to allow ignores on the sister site, but not on the site where they are a member of staff, but for now it will have to be like this.

But this is the entire problem.

Right now in it's current form, the ignore and block features offer a user too much power. You control how another person's experience on the site works.

If someone you have ignored is minding their own business having a conversation with a user you haven't ignored, if the ignored user then gets quoted or @'d by the other, you can now see that conversation and force yourself into it/hijack it. The ignored person has no say in this and will remain excluded from their own conversation, should your replies not be quoted, as they can't see your replies anymore (unless they log out).

That means the ignored person has no power at all to control the experience, while the person doing the ignoring has all of it and given in it's current form ignoring has no safety checks (for a lack of a better term), you could quite easily wall individual users out of the forum entirely just because you and a handful of users decide you don't like somebody.

If you have made the decision to ignore someone, it shouldn't be on your terms, it should be an all or nothing decision. If you want to interact with that person, even indirectly, through discussions they are a part of with other users, then you should have to take them off your ignore lost so there can be equal balance of interaction. If you choose to ignore someone, you should have to accept they will be fully erased.

Otherwise, you are just walling a person out when it suits you and that is *****.

I’m sorry but I just disagree with this entire thing, I mean if Facebook is what you want you can always just go use Facebook, I think too hide even the mention of a name is a bit much, and makes it way tighter then it already is.

@Snatcher agreed, I don't think it needs to be tighter either. The whole ethos of the feature is meant to be quite simple; the ability to help you skip over comments from people you tend to disagree with. Most users don't even need to do this, and simply don't pay much attention to them, but others felt the need to actually hide those posts to make that easier for them - that's fair enough. I think people are starting to overthink the whole thing.

@antdickens Yeah, I agree, I feel like people knew it’s very simple use, didn’t like or was getting harassed, just ignore, A user on here put me on ignore because they didn’t like my opinions, fair enough, pick who you want or don’t want to interact with.

I actually don’t mind just logging out if the discussion is that important.

@Snatcher thanks, I appreciate it — I'm trying to make it useful for as many people as possible. I totally accept it won't be perfect for everyone, and hopefully, everyone can accept it where it's useful to others if not themselves.

@antdickens Yeah, NP.

@Snatcher Agree to disagree. I knew people wouldn't like it but for me personally I have my reasons for suggesting it but that doesn't matter now. As for Facebook, well I left that horrible place last year with no intention of going back.

I suppose it was a bit much to suggest such a thing. It's just I've met some unpleasant people on here before but yeah forget I said anything, it was a silly idea. The tools available now are more than adequate.