The ignore feature is not a weakness nor is it "censorship"

[Koharu]

So, I've been an internet denizen since 1999, which doesn't make me an oldbie, but this forum tends to skew young. Forums are where most of my time has been spent. I was a lurker here for a long time before I started posting off and on with the lead-up to the 2016 election. I've started interacting more as I felt more confident, and now I feel confident enough to say this:

Y'all are really, really ridiculous about the ignore feature.

There are quite a few folks here who are considered to be trolls. Almost all the active userbase acknowledges this. Instead of acting appropriately and ignoring said user(s), they respond to said user(s) and give them the interaction they crave while also mucking up unrelated threads. Then we add in this whole "ban soandso" thread phenomenon, which is an interesting thing but quite pointless considering built in features of nearly every forum software in existence.

There are also many people who don't reach the level of trolls but quite often do not interact in good faith with other users or users or a particular political party.

Put. Them. On. Ignore.

Don't complain about how they always do x or y. Use the ignore feature. It's not censoring them (they can still post to their heart's content), and it's not "being a snowflake;" it's refusing to fall into their petty arguments and traps. There are a fair number of users who would stop derailing topics if people stopped responding to them. I happily have said users on my ignore list, and would be so much happier if others would do the same, as fewer threads would get derailed. It also allows you to see the posts of folks who do disagree with you but aren't rude about it in a much better light, and allows for a bit more thoughtful discourse!

Seriously. It's not worth your blood pressure going up. If you think they should be gone or you don't expect them to interact in good faith or they just treat you like something that came out of a cow's derrière, use the ignore feature. Save yourself some time and breathe a sigh of relief.

Anyway, I've never seen a forum so full of people who are proud of themselves for not using a normal and acceptable feature of a forum. It's silly and makes an already fraught discussion topic even more difficult to navigate. Some folks claim that by using ignore they're taking away the voice of dissenters. That's ridiculous. There are plenty of folks here who disagree with you who are willing to discuss those disagreements in good faith. SO. Make use of this very normal and acceptable feature and make your own forum reading much more enjoyable! Plus, hey, less off-topic wanderings for the rest of us to wade through.

Thanks for your time.

[GeorgiaModerate]

So, I've been an internet denizen since 1999, which doesn't make me an oldbie, but this forum tends to skew young. Forums are where most of my time has been spent. I was a lurker here for a long time before I started posting off and on with the lead-up to the 2016 election. I've started interacting more as I felt more confident, and now I feel confident enough to say this:

Y'all are really, really ridiculous about the ignore feature.

There are quite a few folks here who are considered to be trolls. Almost all the active userbase acknowledges this. Instead of acting appropriately and ignoring said user(s), they respond to said user(s) and give them the interaction they crave while also mucking up unrelated threads. Then we add in this whole "ban soandso" thread phenomenon, which is an interesting thing but quite pointless considering built in features of nearly every forum software in existence.

There are also many people who don't reach the level of trolls but quite often do not interact in good faith with other users or users or a particular political party.

Put. Them. On. Ignore.

Don't complain about how they always do x or y. Use the ignore feature. It's not censoring them (they can still post to their heart's content), and it's not "being a snowflake;" it's refusing to fall into their petty arguments and traps. There are a fair number of users who would stop derailing topics if people stopped responding to them. I happily have said users on my ignore list, and would be so much happier if others would do the same, as fewer threads would get derailed. It also allows you to see the posts of folks who do disagree with you but aren't rude about it in a much better light, and allows for a bit more thoughtful discourse!

Seriously. It's not worth your blood pressure going up. If you think they should be gone or you don't expect them to interact in good faith or they just treat you like something that came out of a cow's derrière, use the ignore feature. Save yourself some time and breathe a sigh of relief.

Anyway, I've never seen a forum so full of people who are proud of themselves for not using a normal and acceptable feature of a forum. It's silly and makes an already fraught discussion topic even more difficult to navigate. Some folks claim that by using ignore they're taking away the voice of dissenters. That's ridiculous. There are plenty of folks here who disagree with you who are willing to discuss those disagreements in good faith. SO. Make use of this very normal and acceptable feature and make your own forum reading much more enjoyable! Plus, hey, less off-topic wanderings for the rest of us to wade through.

Thanks for your time.

Very well said; I couldn't agree more.  I spend time on this forum because I like elections and politics, and this is a good place to find interesting information and see a diverse range of viewpoints.  My time spent here is solely for my enjoyment of that hobby; if anyone gets something out of my posts, that's great, but I don't feel that I "owe" other posters any of my time to read nonsense or deliberate trolling.  I use the Ignore feature liberally, whenever I find a poster particularly annoying.  Sometimes I'll see a quote from someone I've ignored that makes me reconsider and take them off again; there's at least one (who shall remain nameless) that's bounced back and forth 3 or 4 times.  Others are on the list permanently.

[NewYorkExpress]

It's neither weak nor censorship to ignore posters, but it is rude, except in extreme cases (such as Texarkana, Cora, arguably Reaganfan).

[Atlas Has Shrugged]

It’s incredibly weak, what are you talking about?

[Koharu]

It's neither weak nor censorship to ignore posters, but it is rude, except in extreme cases (such as Texarkana, Cora, arguably Reaganfan).

How is it rude? It is an accepted and acceptable tool on almost every forum.

[NewYorkExpress]

It's neither weak nor censorship to ignore posters, but it is rude, except in extreme cases (such as Texarkana, Cora, arguably Reaganfan).

How is it rude? It is an accepted and acceptable tool on almost every forum.

You don't have to use the feature, just don't respond to their posts. Even trolls occasionally make intelligent points, and if you ignore them all the time, you may miss those rare moments of intelligence.

[kyc0705]

It's neither weak nor censorship to ignore posters, but it is rude, except in extreme cases (such as Texarkana, Cora, arguably Reaganfan).

How is it rude? It is an accepted and acceptable tool on almost every forum.

You don't have to use the feature, just don't respond to their posts. Even trolls occasionally make intelligent points, and if you ignore them all the time, you may miss those rare moments of intelligence.

Reading 99 terrible posts in the hopes of finding 1 decent one isn't worth it.

Anyway, on the topic at hand: I completely agree, and I make regular use of the ignore feature and its counterparts on other sites (Twitter's mute option for users AND topics is a godsend). If you don't want to see someone's posts for whatever reason, it's a perfectly reasonable way to keep them out of sight, and an alternative to arguing or just getting angry all the time—although, on sites like these, they have the irritating tendency to show up in quotes from other users.

[Koharu]

It's neither weak nor censorship to ignore posters, but it is rude, except in extreme cases (such as Texarkana, Cora, arguably Reaganfan).

How is it rude? It is an accepted and acceptable tool on almost every forum.

You don't have to use the feature, just don't respond to their posts. Even trolls occasionally make intelligent points, and if you ignore them all the time, you may miss those rare moments of intelligence.

That doesn't answer the question of how it's rude, though.

kyc0705 addressed everything else I would have said. Not seeing pointless trolly or demeaning and hateful posts makes browsing the forum a much more enjoyable experience and allows me to focus more on worthwhile posts.

[dead0man]

It's neither weak nor censorship to ignore posters, but it is rude, except in extreme cases (such as Texarkana, Cora, arguably Reaganfan).

How is it rude? It is an accepted and acceptable tool on almost every forum.

You don't have to use the feature, just don't respond to their posts. Even trolls occasionally make intelligent points, and if you ignore them all the time, you may miss those rare moments of intelligence.

if it's that good, it will get quoted.


I agree with the OP.  Stop responding to trolls people.

[Fuzzy Bear]

I don't put people on ignore because I'm not going to sleep through people making libelous personal attacks on me.  Nor should everyone else.

This forum tolerates people being called racists for no other reason but that they advocate issue positions that are opposed by racial minorities (e. g. immigration, affirmative action).  They are called sexist and misogynist  for no other reason but that they question the full ramifications of the #MeToo movement, which, in part, elevates allegations to the level of proof at a certain level.  They call people homophobes and vile because they subscribe to a Biblical view of homosexuality (although this seems to be applied only to Christians, who adhere to a Biblical view, and not Muslims, who adhere to a Quranic view).  It allows these people to make these sort of personal attacks on people for political stances and it allows 4-5 others to pile on, freely and unapologetically.  Not to mention I've actually been called a liar for disclosing that I have had a grandchild that was aborted (all to make a political argument, an attack that was received supportively by other posters).

I'm not going to ignore people freely trashing me, and no one else should, either if they value their reputation.  Some people literally do nothing here but slander others, and they seem to not be going anywhere.  That's fine, but I'm going to respond to that as it is, and not as I would have it.

Can people argue the merits of the issue without slandering/libeling other people?  There is a difference between disagreeing with someone, even to the point of finding NO merit in their argument and calling them slanderous and libelous names.  Some people around here can't, and I suppose that's a fact of life, but I'm not going to set myself up to be trashed in the darkness of "ignore".  

Truthfully, for those who feel free to make slanderous personal attacks, they ought be doing so with the full knowledge that the person they are attacking will read it.  I'm not going to embolden the worst of Atlas by ingoring them.  If people are going to attack me, they can do so knowing I'll read it.

[Fuzzy Bear]

It’s incredibly weak, what are you talking about?

[Torie]

Against perhaps my better judgement, I am going to post a thought here. Once upon a time, there was a poster (well perhaps a couple) that went after me, early and often, and in my view, biased as it obviously is, unfairly.  At that time, I had my own "honor" code and did not report posts against me that I thought violated the TOS. In my mind, perhaps egotistically, I thought I should and could take care of myself, and had the tools to defend myself, where and when I wanted to, effectively. I thought it kind of "unmanly" to go and run and tell "mommy."

Anyway, what I did do in this situation was in most instances, to not respond at all to the personal attacks and trashing ("concern troll" was a popular one - I had to look up what that meant at the time). By not responding, the attacker was not given any fuel to keep on going. I was hopeful that other posters would make their own evaluation of the attack and whether to take it seriously or not. I trusted them I guess to be by and large fair in how they judged me. If you fight back, I suspect you will find that it will fuel more personal attacks. Finally, if you do fight back, being as diplomatic (and impersonal) as possible, and doing so more in sorrow than in anger, also tends to de-escalate matters.

Anyway, that was my personal approach. And it still kind of is, when it comes to personal attacks against me. Granted, for whatever reason, they happen but rarely now (except of course when it comes to my judgments as a Mod, which are fair game in any event).

Come to think of it, and not as a theological, but merely as a prudential matter here, a certain biblical turn of phrase comes to my mind.