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Feature request: Ignore list size increase?
Cambiata
Commander ShepardThe likes of which even GAWD has never seenRegistered User regular
Commander ShepardThe likes of which even GAWD has never seenRegistered User regular
Is there any chance we can get the ignore list upped a bit? Thanks.
"If you divide the whole world into just enemies and friends, you'll end up destroying everything" --Nausicaa of the Valley of Wind
+1
Posts
Is there some rationale behind the size limit, or would it just be onerous to increase it?
For a starter, I rarely use the ignore list as a "this person is universally terrible" button. There are a few people who are permanently on my ignore list for that reason (hello, person who sent me three angry PMs in a row after I unambiguously said 'do not PM me") More often than that, though, it's just someone who has done nothing wrong, but our personalities grate against each other in a way that would cause frequent arguments were either of us to engage - and the things one or both of us say is constantly tempting the other to engage.
Here is an example, someone who is no longer on my ignore list: I used to follow a thread about a sitcom. There was one particular person who came into that thread after every single episode to complain, in excruciating detail, about how bad it was and how he wishes the producers were still making the show they were making in season 1. The arguments went on for pages. Sometimes I joined the argument, sometimes it was just this one guy versus half the thread. He never got tired of it. He never stopped watching the show. In hindsight I can see that probably complaining about it was where most of his enjoyment came from and that's fine for him, but for me it made the thread that I liked otherwise very unpleasant. That was when a light bulb went off in my head and I realized I could use the ignore function for something other than "this person is a blight on humanity." I could use it on an otherwise nice, intelligent dude, just so I could read a thread without his annoying posts.
Once I stopped following that thread, after a while I remembered he was on the ignore list (because he participated in other threads I was interested in, and I wanted to read what he had to say about those subjects) and so off he came.
So on the face of it normally 5 ignore slots would work for me. Except... as time goes on I expand to reading more threads on the forum. Which means, unfortunately, I'm exposed to more people who through no fault of their own I just don't get along with in a particular arena. Right now my ignore list is full. Suppose I get another dude who sends me multiple PMs after being asked not to?** It would be a matter of necessity to put him in the ignore list to prevent that. At that point I'd have to remove one of the nice people I don't get along with, as removing the actual assholes is not an option. Which, unfortunately, could have a tendency to cause arguments. I don't even mean that I'd instantly start an argument with one of those people - one of the nice people on my list is someone who frequently calls me out for this or that (ie "why are you saying this, Cambiata?" type posts) and putting him on ignore means I don't see those call-outs. If I had to take him off I would see those again and depending on how often he does them I'd be worn down into responding eventually which would lead to an (entirely pointless!) argument. No one wants that.
Though when I think about it that way, "prevent someone from being able to PM you" is also a really important function of the ignore list, and a reason it should be expanded. Maybe as a safety issue, have a separate, much larger list of people you can put names in for 'DO NOT PM'?
**Granted this is a situation that has only ever happened to me as a result of feminism threads, and we haven't had one of those in a while. But if we did and I saw it, I would participate, so angry unwanted PMs is still a situation I might have to deal with. This is maybe the only reason I would put a long time PA poster on permanent ignore. I've lived with enough abusive people in my life that I no longer have patience for "I know what you need better than you do/my needs are more important than yours, so I'm going to ignore when you said not to do this" boundary pushing.
I did invite the first mod I saw online to that particular conversation. The mod didn't do anything, forcing me to put him the poster on ignore. I assumed that since the actual text of the PMs was mild that the mod didn't see anything wrong with it so the mod had no reason to take action. Maybe I should have PMed the mod separately from the conversation and asked them to intercede? I don't really know how to handle it.
This is partly why I think the ignore list is important. Not everything that makes me feel uncomfortable is going to be covered by the rules or seen the same way as I see it by the mods.
Ok, sounds good.
I wanted to tack on another vote for possibly extending the list (since it has been a year and a half, and dev room may have opened up), even a little bit, as I ran into the limit today when trying to add someone, and had to try to juggle who I least wanted to avoid seeing posts from.
5 is a pretty limiting number when you frequent multiple threads from multiple forums on a regular basis, and may want to block certain people for aggressively differing opinions (that aren't actually probably breaking any rules, but are still toxic to the thread).
That sounds like behaviour you could report to a mod.
This post is certainly a great advertisment for the ignore function, but probably not for the reason you intended.
I've taken the advice of Tube and other mods who suggest reporting instead of engaging or ignoring people. Whenever it's someone like Tube who responds to a report I make, the response is what I expect - reasonable and professional. Whenever it's some other mods, though, the response is actually to mock me for reporting because it's "whining." I don't want to annoy mods with my "whininess", I just want to have people not be shitty at or around me. I understand that what the mods think is shitty and what I think is shitty is not the same thing, what the mods think is harassment and what I think is harassment is not the same thing, and I accept that. That's why I still think the ignore function is the best bridge between those two worlds.
For some context: When I originally made the request at the top of this thread, it was in response to feeling attacked by a popular, well-liked poster on these forums. Many months after making that post, I actually asked someone to explain to me why I got the response from Tube in this thread that I got, and once it was explained to me I realized the part that I was deliberately leaving out of my posts (which makes my request sound either dishonest or whiny) is that the motivation for making the request was that I was being harassed but I didn't think anyone would agree that what was happening was "harassment" so I didn't know what to do. I instead choose to tell what I thought would be a less inflammatory story about a less well liked poster, which of course backfired spectacularly and just left me feeling like I had to solve the harassment myself. What I ultimately ended up doing was just no longer posting in threads where that popular person hangs out, and it worked pretty well but it does feel kind of unfair that I was the one who had to take the loss, you know?
It hurts my feelings and I don't like it of course. But I also don't want to be doing stuff that obviously gets on the mods nerves.
They probably also shouldn't jail you for using it either, yet here we are.