edit: done with this
Right, but are you constitutionally unable to scroll when you see the avatar of that person? You’re forced to reply to their posts, by the demons within?
I find what works for me in some of those cases is a) scrolling and b) replying to other, more sensible posts in the same topic, instead. Essentially redirection.
Also I want to say I am not categorically against ignore like I used to be. Even as a form of occasional self-medication that reduces mod workload it is a plus… it’s just rare to physically need it that much. And the feature has to be designed to prevent longer term destruction of the community, e.g. it is time-boxed or category-boxed by default and when {x} people ignore someone, the mods get nagged… a LOT.
What you’re looking for is a strong emotive reaction and people are having these offline.
Maybe imagine that your community is full of random people; not just tech people, but actors, dancers, artists, middle managers, truck drivers; white, black, asian, hispanic, and everything in between.
Not all these people are going to be dispassionate conversationalists. It might be strange to you or I, but some of these people are not going to be able to contain their emotional responses to posts or posters they disagree with. But the topic or person posting isn’t actually “crossing the line” and can’t or shouldn’t be banned by the rules of the forum. Ignoring them is their next 'best" response. Should people be forced to consider opinions that are offensive to them?
So while in theory it might actually help public discourse if people had to converse with and respect other people’s good faith but offensive discourses, in practice today people want nothing to do with discourses they find offensive, and most sites provide the tools to ensure they aren’t exposed to such. I don’t have an easy answer, but most people expect filters on their content today. Frankly this kind of is the problem with social media, and why i don’t like “likes”.
Your comments are more reflective of Facebook, which thinks of itself (and to be fair largely is, these days) a singular, giant global system connecting every man, woman, and child on earth.
Discourse isn’t like that; the idea is “let a million flowers / communities bloom”, and when people don’t fit into the community, they get politely shown the door. They should find another community where they fit in, and there is a diverse tapestry of millions of these communities out there to choose from.
Whereas on Facebook if you banned someone from Facebook, they effectively cease to exist as a “digital person” and the show them the door technique is therefore untenable.
Your guiding principle seems to be then when communities get too large to house under one roof the natural disagreements larger and larger communities will naturally have, they should “fork” rather than “filter”. Is this incorrect?
While I agree with you muting is a poor solution @malkav11 's issue does seem fair (he maybe irritated by me for all I know but thats cool). Some people are not ban worthy but are just I dunno … irritating? So some tool to assist those cases would be nice, but I don’t really have any solutions.
Ideally one would just PM the person and say “hey when you say this kind of thing it bugs me, any chance you could chill with it?” but thats not very helpful either because when someone irritates you, you want LESS to do with them, not more.
I was going to suggest the idea of an anonymous PM or the “quiet word” from a mod. but that also comes with issues.
I dunno, but I do have sympathy for his position and no, one cannot simply avert ones eyes no matter what
civil service mandarins say.
Of course not. But you are prescribing the “just tough it out” school of dealing with the problem when there is a massively more fucking effective solution called “an ignore function”.
It’s like being a repair shop asking someone whose car has broken down if they can’t just walk places. Of course they can, but they shouldn’t fucking have to, and you’re the one that can fix that.
Disagreeing with one member of the community != not fitting into the community. And in at least one case, it’s purely one-sided. I don’t like the way a particular person approaches the world and find their posts tiring. I’ve almost never engaged with them because there’s no point, and I’m not going to suggest that they be thrown out because I personally don’t enjoy reading what they write. That would be some bullshit.
How many cases are we talking about here?
For me it’s probably a half dozen active members. I have them ignored using my script right now. None of them should be kicked out I just blocked them for personal reasons.
Most of my ignored people I actually only want to ignore in P&R honestly.
This is the part that confuses me. This is advocating for an ignore function. It’s just an ignore function in your brain, that requires a degree of cognitive and emotional effort, rather than one built into the software—software whose stated goal is to reduce the friction involved in communicating with people.
I don’t see a meaningful distinction between the two. In @malkav11’s example, whose life is improved if he scrolls past his nemesis’ uncensored posts, rather than scrolling past, say, blurred ones? Why is it any different for the community?
Thanks for taking people’s concerns seriously.
More like “my vehicle’s air conditioning doesn’t keep the temperature I require, therefore I am very cross.”
You scroll past / skim stuff every second of every day. It’s a natively human skill required to be a functional human being. Unless you read literally every piece of text that appears on your screen, in detail?
Imagine if you remembered every single thing that happened every day, for your entire life. You’d be functionally insane, because that’s not what happens. You skim and scroll by constantly.
cc @RichVR
I was talking about the stupid meme you posted.
Honestly I laughed. That vanity plate is on a Honda. :)
Edit: sorry, I know that’s not helping.
Wumpus, stop being a knob!
There, that’s the right spirit.
That damn sea lion sounds eerily familiar.
I mean his lines are practically a copy/paste of that sea lion’s lines.
Damn sea lions.
A number that justifies the existence of a feature that virtually every other piece of communications software on the entire planet offers: i.e., at least one.
When I’m engaging in a conversation with other human beings? Abso-fucking-lutely, I read their posts in detail. But again, your fucking forum software is supposedly here to facilitate communication with other human beings. This is a known problem with a superior technological solution that is present in every other piece of communications software and you’re instead proposing that I do it manually. So why the fuck are we even using Discourse, again?