Question ignoring members

[squintz]

It kind of irks me that they can follow you too... I had to ask one person to stop.. and yes he was on ignore.

What, wait. I didn't see your message. Was it PM? Give me another chance, I promise not to follow you into the tattoo parlors any more.

 

[tiberias]

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[Davy Darkrage]

It doesn't make sense to not acknowledge that some people don't get along and for the sake of harmony in our community, they should be just kept apart as much as possible.

It's not that I don't acknowledge this, it's that I'm not convinced measures beyond what already exist would be practical or effective.

Some people will never leave you alone no matter how dysfunctional the relationship becomes. I for one am happy to leave someone alone who puts me on ignore, but there are people here who make it a point to basically say "hey you can't ignore me" because I will reply to everything you say and even follow your loved ones around on the forum to show how little ignoring them means to them.

And therein lies the problem, those people would do the same thing even if the feature was more comprehensive. I've even outlined exactly how in my previous post:

consider that they would still be able to read your public messages by logging out (or using an incognito/private window), and respond to your messages without quoting you

Think about it, if enough people choose to ignore someone then that's a pretty powerful and democratic statement that doesn't rest on a single individual with all the power to make. If ignoring actually did anything substantial here, then it would be a very effective tool when applied by the entire community.

I'd argue people can make this powerful, democratic statement as-is. I don't think additional measures would prevent a determined individual on your ignore list from trying to engage with you. If enough people truly found it in themselves to ignore an individual, no matter how hard that individual tries to engage with them in public, the end result is the same. If someone you ignore is escalating their behavior and harassing you, report them. We don't tolerate flaming or trolling and they will be dealt with accordingly.

 

[tiberias]

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[Shamus The Brute]

...If you think about it you might get a lot more people registering if not all the content was viewable by guests.
Some people would have no problem allowing their posts viewable to the outside world. These posts would act as teasers giving guests an idea of what they are missing out on by not joining. There is a solution which would even increase membership in my opinion, but the ball as always is obviously in your court.

I know the above is not directed at me but if I could, I would like to comment to what was quoted above (as someone whom hasn’t yet taken the time to read all posts written to this thread).

Somehow, content to this forums has always been both open and transparent. I am of the opinion that this is a great thing. Also, I feel only one time since I have been affiliated with this forums did the powers-to-be ever feel a need to worry about increased registration. With the exception of that particular time-period, is was never too much of a concern (as much as I am aware) because content on this forums has always been capable of standing on it’s own two feet. *With that said, there is no greater truth online that if someone wants to pester you - they most certainly will regardless of what platform you happen to spend your time on.

A memory to share: I recall during POTCO’s time a unruly pirate (whom hacked accounts along with other things) post a video on YouTube about a well-known pirate’s account being stolen only to show themselves DELETING said pirate’s (full) inventory! As such, in my opinion it always goes back to “where there is a will, there is a way” - type of online harassment.

 

[Davy Darkrage]

It holds no water because all you have to do is make it so when someone posts something they can choose to make it public so guests can view it or not.

That would leave the remaining discussion fragmented and difficult to follow for guests (and non-bothersome ignored users, for that matter). It would also hurt content discovery for search engines. Almost half of our traffic is users coming from searches, nearly double the amount of direct traffic:

I'm not really concerned with inflating registration numbers. If someone is interested in participating in the discussions, they can register an account. If they aren't interested in participating in the discussions, I don't have any vested interest in forcing them to create an account just to view them. I would rather the full discussions be available for anybody to see.

And in the end, it would be immediately circumvented by your troublesome ignored user creating an additional account anyways.

I'm not completely opposed to ideas for how to improve the feature, but preventing ignored users from viewing your public messages is not the answer.

 

[tiberias]

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[Davy Darkrage]

Creating new accounts is a strategy people use for circumventing forum bans. So I guess that having any rules is pointless because if people get banned they will just make a new forum account.

Banned users who are determined enough can and do circumvent their bans and cause additional trouble. I do concede that it's a matter of attrition, but I still think that hiding public messages would be ineffective against determined users and would be a bad idea for other reasons. I'm open to other ideas, but at the end of the day it's up to people to refuse to reciprocate with ignored users who try to engage with them.

For what it's worth, ignored users deliberately have no way of even knowing they're ignored (unless you tell them), and I'm also wary of doing anything that would change that.

From that perspective I could care less about someone who performs a Google search, hits a page telling them they need to register to view the content and is too lazy to bother. That's not a member of our pirates community I would like to keep.

A member who only signs up because they must isn't a member I'm interested in having either. They're unlikely to contribute meaningfully anyways, or they would have signed up without being forced. The only members I would like are those who are genuinely interested in being here. Still, that's only half of the issue. Hiding messages from guests means hiding them from Google, so search users would be less likely to find their way here to begin with.

I would rather sign off saying thank you for all you have invested here (your time, talent and treasure) and I wish you the best for your future and the health of these foums.

Thank you for starting a dialogue about the issues you have with the feature and ways in which it could be improved.