Topic: So, You Can Now Ignore Users

@skywake That would explain why I can't see Anti's posts as I haven't blocked him, I checked. I don't even post that much so I'm not even sure why.

@FishyS I guess it comes down to Nintendo Life's policy on multiple accounts.

"5 c. Do not create duplicate, fake or "sock" accounts; Creating alternate accounts or dummy accounts to trick/harass other users will result in all of your accounts being banned. Users who have been banned and create new accounts fall into this category and will also be banned."

https://www.nintendolife.com/rules

I'm under the impression this is very much enforced so it would act as a kind of protective barrier. You can circumvent a block by signing out or using incognito mode but you can't really do anything with it. If I'm wrong and it's very easy to get around multiple accounts, blocking would actually be very bad for the blocker as it would paint them as a target if the blocked people were the malicious type.

Agreed that ignore/block is great for peacekeeping, used by other forms of social media and it is good for general safety. I’ve been targeted and harassed by a few users (including being harassed outside of NL) and even when I didn’t respond or had never tagged some users they went out of their way to harass me. I don’t engage as much as I used to because of that (or rather not with the same depth. I toss out quick comments mostly)but the ignore and block feature is why I haven’t left overall. It is why I turned off email notifications though. Got tired of getting aholes in my inbox. If you really need to see someone who doesn’t want to talk to you (or be targeted by you because that happens too even when you mind your own business and ignore someone) sign out/use incognito.

But not everyone finds everyone else agreeable or safe (which is my primary reason for blocking) to be around. And my safety and mental health is more important to me than if someone can read what I typed when they are signed in. Also the longer you stay on a social media platform the more bad actors learn about you and then use to harass (or get more rilled up by you and target you more) you. Also a lot of people don’t come here to argue. Some folks just want to enjoy the site in peace. Disagreeing is fine but some folks have to shout you down, have to go out of their way to focus on you, when you want nothing to do with them. I wish people were better but I wish for world peace too. Good luck on either.

If someone metions me in a comment, will I see it even if they are blocked?

What's the difference between blocked and ignored? I'm too friendly to ifnd out for myself

Ignoring someone means you can't see the ignored person's posts. Doesn't really effect anyone
but you since it's equivalent to just not reading certain posts.

Blocking someone means that they can't see your posts. So you are effecting the blocked person's experience rather than your own.

@FishyS ohhh, ok, thank you!

But blocking is a step above. When you block someone you also impact on their ability to use the site. I see people interacting with Anti, I see him comment on posts. But I can't view his actual post unless I open an incognito tab. A tool that powerful should have restrictions

@skywake Casually dropping into this thread - so I may be missing some context - I'm not quite sure I follow you here, but I feel some of what you're saying applies to me quite specifically. I'm not trying to argue with you necessarily, I'm just asking - where is the loss here? If Anti-Matter or anyone else doesn't want to interact with you - well, neither you, nor I, nor the mods can force them. At the same time, an easy workaround to access all of that user's comments exists. How is NL really imposing anything on anyone here?

I'm of the view that blocking shouldn't exist at all. If someone is being that disruptive that blocking is required surely it needs to be more than just their ability to see posts from one user. At that point it should be a straight up ban. But if it is to exist it should require moderator involvement or have some kind of limit

This seems like an over-powered "solution" to... a problem that the mods simply cannot solve. I am trying to understand you and empathize with your feelings here, although I can't say that I'm particularly bothered by people ignoring me - I have a very lengthy Ignore list myself... long enough that I forced myself to prune it when I was still a regular user here.

Anti-Matter has Ignored and Blocked me as well, not to mention the person commenting directly above me. Sometimes the reasons for that are quite petty (I happen to know it was about my daring to disagree with someone's politics in the instance above), in certain cases they might even be valid (sometimes I dig in too hard when I bite - comes with being a toothberry), but - this is about choice, plain and simple. I'm a little baffled by Anti's blocking me, I admit, but he's made his choice and I respect it. Do you see what I mean? In the end, all we can really do here is try to communicate. Other people are gonna do what they're gonna do.

I think you’re all giving Anti too much weight with this talk when he is such an anomaly in this forum from erm… being so quirky, like think about when scientists do testing he’s the result with an odd uncontrollable variable that puts the entire curve out of whack from its weird result.

You can make strong arguments for both pro and against blocking based on Anti’s behaviour so you may as well just remove him from the conversation when talking about blocking.

@CANOEberry
It's quite simple. Ignoring a user is a way for me to change the way I see the site. Blocking a user alters the way that other user sees the site. Why should another user have that kind of power over how I see the site? Only the mods should have that kind of power and it should be used sparingly

In this specific case sure, I am not really missing out on that much. But I'm talking more about the tool itself rather than this particular case. Again, regular users should not have this kind of power

And in the end, if they can't see my posts what does it matter if I can see theirs? If it is the case that me seeing their post is so disruptive to the community that they should be hidden? Surely that's the mods job to judge. And if I am actually being that disruptive over one user surely I'm then also doing this to other users. If this course of action is required the solution should be something more like a temp ban not a perma-single-user ban

I'm just going to quickly my opinion on this topic - the block/ignore should always be an option on forumns site and especially social media. The feature makes micro managing your experience easier without the needs of mods.

The mentality that it blocking/ignoring shouldn't exist as a feature at all because it should left up to the mods doesn't really make much sense to me and comes across as for lack of a better term, naive.
The mods aren't going to be in every single conversation or argument that happens on the fly and the problem only boils down to one user then blocking/ignoring them seems like the most logical option.

One issue I do see however is that for some reason ignoring someone on this site also makes it so that you can't see their messages even if you don't ignore them back which is strange.
But just change that and the issues disappear for me.

@iLikeUrAttitude
Yeah, I'm not saying that ignoring should be only available to mods. I'm fine with giving users the ability to hide other user posts from themselves, mute replies, control notifications etc. If people want to personalise how they themselves interact with the site? That's fine. That's a great feature

When I say that "this power should be mod level only" I'm talking specifically about one user being able to alter how OTHER users interact with the site. Regular users shouldn't be able to do that. It should be mod level only

Basically, I have no issues with the ignore feature. But the way the block works is a problem, which you agree with. If it is to exist in any form it should be controlled by a mod. But I think it would probably be better if it was removed entirely given mods I assume already have the power to outright delete and ban accounts

@Ryu_Niiyama The issue isn't with having a general block function on the site. The issue is just that by having it executed to where you can't see the other person's posts, you are basically blacklisted from multiple conversations. Logging in and out to view a post is practically circumventing, which I feel like is possibly against the rules in some shape or form.

I feel like if these forums are going to have a block function, the best way to execute it is by having it be one-way. Where the person who blocks you just doesn't see your messages. That's better, since it doesn't outright punish a person for reasons beyond them. They can still participate in a conversation without feeling as if they're mentioning stuff which the person who blocked them already mentioned ahead of time.

@VoidofLight That is what a block is, that you have no contact with the other user, just like other social media. So I don't see the point you are making over a feature that is used in other social media, other than you don't want people to have the ability to remove themselves from the purview of potential bad actors. I'm not going to go in circles about it as I don't see the point but again if you have to see someone that blocked you, you can, but again for some ignoring them isn't enough. And either way it's no different than ignore from the other side. I can't see the people I ignore, but I am still able to participate in conversations. Now that being said, I already know that you are going to disagree and that's fine. I simply weighted in because a lot of times this thread gets full of people that hate the feature in an echo chamber and I wanted to make sure that someone that uses the feature is heard as well. So I will simply agree to disagree, and you can keep directing your comments at Ant and see if he decides to change it.

As an interesting thought experiment... imagine if one of the staff could block you if they didn't like your comments so that you couldn't see their articles anymore but could see other articles. That would be bizarre. Clearly a more normal approach would be to temporarily ban/mute the person so they couldn't respond to articles rather than couldn't see just some of them (assuming it was an actual problem and not just the author disagreeing with the comment).

So ironically someone who's posting in this very thread has me blocked so yeah I had to log out to see what they said. And they brought up so it's like other social media sites, but this is not a social media site. It's not Facebook, it's not Twitter or Tik Tok or Instagram it's a video game news site. If you are expecting a site like this to have features like Facebook or Twitter then maybe you should go there. That would be like me asking why doesn't this site have a streaming plan, all the other streaming sites have a streaming plan.

Also let me bring up the fact that I am a paid supporter of this site, which kind of makes me think, if I am being blocked by other users from seeing contant that I am paying for, then what's the point have being a supporter?

@Ryu_Niiyama I mean, I personally feel as if a forum having a feature that blocks you from seeing others posts isn't a great idea. Its a board meant for discussion. I've had situations where I was blocked by others and I couldn't weigh in on specific topics due to being blocked, as I could not follow what was being said. It alienates people from conversation just because the person who decides to block you ends up talking within said conversation. If used too much, you effectively get blocked out of entire topics.

Forums and Social Media sites are two different beasts. With Social Media, you can still engage with discussions without being able to see other's posts. If someone comments on a thread, I can still comment on that same thread and know what that thread is saying despite being blocked by the person who also commented on that thread. In a forum, most threads are active discussions that are built upon individuals interacting with one another. If person A blocks person B, and then comments and pivots the discussion in a new direction, it makes it hard for Person B to take part in that discussion due to not knowing the full context around the pivoted direction.

I don't really get the purpose of having the blocks be two-way on a forum. Blocking someone and not seeing their posts should be enough, should it not? You no longer engage with them or have them engage with you. You no longer see their posts and it saves you the mental struggle without alienating them from using the site.

@Eagly_lmtd_xmasskin I disagree honestly. I feel like people have the ability to voice their criticism of the system without defaulting to name-calling or making people feel awful about it. If this thread were to the point where people were name-calling or outright bashing others, I'd get it. However, this isn't what's going on. The only reason Skywake even mentioned Anti-matter was because it ended up being one of the most recent examples of blocks having a frustrating effect on utilizing the website itself.

I'd also point out one clear way a forum isn't like Reddit or Facebook or Twitter. Sure moderators are always stretched and kudos for the work they do. But the level of moderation on a site like this orders of magnitude higher than it is on large social media sites. At the very least here issues like bots, spammers and other clear bad actors are able to be controlled by more blunt moderation tools. I don't think there's a desperate need for users to be taking on moderation duties

Also, as a side note, outside of clear bots on twitter back in the day I have personally only ever blocked one person. And that was one of my sisters, on Facebook, because every family has to have one. And I didn't want her seeing anything about me. Fair to say I don't think anyone on this forum could ever even remotely approach that bar and certainly I don't post anything here which would be that level of personal I'd want to hide it

So yeah, social media site have this kind of feature. This is not the same kind of forum so, IMO, the comparison falls flat

@skywake Exactly but I see it all the time, so many users compare this site to a social media site like Facebook, or Twitter and honestly I don't know why, they are comparing apples to oranges. It's just not the ignore/block features too it's other features they ask for to, I see it all the time in the suggestion thread. Facebook has this can we get it here, Twitter has this feature when are you adding it etc etc etc. I think the most common one people as for is a PM cause Facebook has it. Again you want a social media type of experience go to Facebook.