Maybe you and @malkav11 can help me understand exactly what’s so traumatic about seeing these posts, if you are never notified about them? Your mouse scroll wheel isn’t broken, I presume? You are not compelled by burly men wearing black balaclavas to read said posts?
Dude, it’s free open-source software and we’re getting free support from the owner and core developers here running on a server paid for and hosted by the guy you’re talking to. If it doesn’t have a feature you want, I’m sure they accept patches. Otherwise, chill out a bit.
I get that he’s also a community member and often a pain in the ass in his own right, but you just don’t make demands to OSS devs that way unless you’re paying them.
That’s what I’m asking. What currency do I need to pay them in to make it happen, because damn is it missed from vBulletin.
And your response makes it clear my tone wasn’t clear. I’m seriously wondering about an ignore feature, but I’m not stomping my feet and demanding he provide something. I don’t need to “chill out” because I’m not worked up, sorry if it came across that way. The tone was jocular, not angry.
I can only speak for myself, but I’d like an ignore option because a very small number of users on this forum (as on every forum I frequent) really rub me the wrong way. I don’t think they are bad actors that need to be reported to moderators, but I have no interest in engaging with them, and would welcome the option to not see their posts at all.
As it stands, I do my best to just scroll past their posts when I’m browsing the forum, but it’s inevitable that I’ll occasionally read (and be irritated by) their posts every now and then. An ignore function certainly isn’t a necessity, but it would be a welcome convenience that would make my user experience slightly more pleasant. I’ve found it genuinely useful on other forums that offer the option.
I’m not against it, necessarily, I just want to hear a bit more specifics of why these posts absolutely must be erased from your screen at all costs. Like, you literally can’t stop yourself from reading it and replying to it?
There are plenty of posters in the world that the minute I see their avatar roll into view on my screen, I begin scrolling vigorously. (Not specifically here, just in the world. I can think of one Boing Boing poster that was not rude to anyone per se, but just this constantly, absurdly insane off-topic dingbat… he eventually got suspended and everyone breathed a huge collective sigh of relief.)
First, could you please try not being a condescending dick about a perfectly reasonable request? Thanks.
Secondly, let me lay this out for you. There are people in this and other communities who, while they are functional members of that community and do not warrant moderator intervention or removal, rub me right the fuck the wrong way and it takes an active effort of will not to engage with them (something which benefits neither myself, the other person, nor the conversation). Muting notifications helps not be dragged back into a conversation I had left, but it doesn’t do anything about the desire to engage with them in the first place. Nor does it help me participate in a conversation I was otherwise enjoying when one of these people decides to butt in. Especially if they actively address me. And I’m not sure it prevents them from private messaging me if so inclined, also.
Edit: yes, I can stop myself. But it makes my life so much simpler and less stressful to not fucking have to.
Sorry, that’s who I am. If you don’t like it, well… I guess you can ignore me ;)
I would love to. Please implement that ignore feature. Thanks.
Sorry, won’t be doing so any time soon. Enjoy! 😉
(For the record, I am sympathetic to this request in the context of actual abuse and people who can be triggered by PTSD and things like that. But “I just can’t help myself!” continues to be a weak argument. For weak arguments, I have a weak solution: use the greasemonkey ignore script if you really need this. It works.)
Most implementations of ignore features cause me to pay more attention to people’s post, even when I’m trying to ignore then.
E.g. I’ve ignored.some users on the boardgameguru forums. But that just means I end up clicking ‘expand’ every time I see one of their posts, as it doesn’t tell me who posted the hidden message, so then I have to rapido scroll once I see their avatar, incase anyone is replying
I just want to be clear I am not categorically against an ignore like I used to be, largely because of the stories of women and underrepresented groups who get targeted. It is something we will get to.
But a bunch of white dudes arguing (probably about politics)? For now, use the greasemonkey script. And if it is a particular person consistently being a giant PITA, keep flagging them until they get suspended or the moderators tell them to tone it down. Make the moderators here actually do their jobs.
But that’s just it. These people aren’t being trolls or deliberately causing a ruckus, there’s just a personality conflict that leads to bad shit if there’s no barrier between. Moderation isn’t the solution, software is.
That said, if an ignore function is genuinely on the dev list, I can wait.
The problem is, there are a few rare users that just shit up a thread, I find personally obnoxious or offensive, or whatever. Yes, I can scroll past their posts and I do so. But sometimes they make up what feels like a third to a half of a thread. I can keep scrolling past their posts to find the next post to read, but it becomes a repetitive task and a UI chore that I wish were automated, which is something computer software is well suited to do.
When I’m using Fiddler or other software, I can filter out the noise to focus on the information I’m interested in. I would like the same ability in my communications software, all of which support that capability except this one. That’s not a slag, I’m just saying it makes the absence particularly noticeable.
Wumpus, vBulletin allowed users to exchange posts and carry on conversations just like Discourse yet there were certain features it lacked or clunkiness that drove you nuts enough to make an alternative, right? This is no different, really.
Also, half the day I’m on my phone and Greasemonkey scripts are not an option in that context, as far as I can tell. Maybe there’s another alternative, IDK, but it would be infinitely superior to just have it present in the actual forum.
This is where I’d like the mods to intervene. Patterns like that, where one person is posting a zillion times in the same topic, are not fucking healthy. I’ve said so before, and I will continue saying so. (Yes, there is a Discourse feature that warns people when they are doing this, but @stusser has turned it off.)
It’s a little more difficult to see here because of the megatopic love where a period of over-posting is buried in the statistical noise of a topic that’s already 1000+ posts long, but the mods should be quick to tell people to chill out as need be.
Because nobody needs to attend every argument they are invited to. Especially when it’s “that one guy” as it typically is.
(Not saying I haven’t been “that guy” before, because I have, and I think we all have at some point.)
No problem, my bad. Can be tough to read tone in text!
As the GreaseMonkey developer dude, let me chime in to say that there is at least one mobile browser that you can use user scripts with, but I can’t recall which one. If you really want it, I’d recommend looking it up.
Wumpus, I didn’t know you’d changed your position on ignoring. If that’s the case would you be amenable to me adding it to Discourse and submitting it myself? I can’t promise anything right now due to time constraints, but I might be able to get to it. I’d prefer doing the work on a full solution rather than a script, after all. It’ll take me longer though, the codebase for Discourse is complicated and large. :)
I would merrily contribute to a code bounty if that helped encourage that feature up your list of free-time side-projects, @arrendek. Your script (and Discourse update submissions) have been massively useful to me since the switch :)
I can tell you it’s not Chrome, which is the browser I want to use.