Twins, Basil!
I have to wonder if the policies on the message bords....
Do not use profanity or vulgar speech;
Do not make bigoted, hateful, or racially insensitive statements;
Do not defame, abuse, stalk, harass, or threaten others;
Do not advocate illegal activities or discuss them with intent to commit them;
Apply to smurfs!
In other words can I boil six F*#&$^# smurfs and make gold?
Of course I have to stalk & harass the smurf first!
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I'm really shocked that I am gonna say this, but I agree that an ignore feature would be nice. There are so many times where I am reading a thread, would love to reply to some points, but by the time I get to it, there are 8 pages of 2 people arguing back and forth over something unrelated, OR just saying the same thing over and over. I go to hit reply, but I have no doubt that by then the original poster, or the person I want to reply to isn't even watching anymore.
From my experience on other boards, ignore really works. You soon find that some people end up on a lot of ignore lists, which cuts down on the number of people who take the bait to disrupt a good conversation.
This has come up before, but the last thread I found on this was over a year old, and I thought it would be better to start anew than perform necromancy (that's an evil act in some realms, and I'm trying to keep my alignment up ;) ).
Anyway: please, please, please implement an Ignore feature if at all possible. They have worked well at other boards I've been at.
I like this board for the useful rules discussions and sharing of ideas. Many people here are very nice and great to interact with. I also like being able to submit feedback for Paizo products here.
However, despite its many great features, too often a few worms spoil the barrel of rich, juicy apples. Some posts a couple weeks ago left me so angry I haven't been here until today ("Yay!" everyone says, "Let's keep it up and this b#@!& will go away!"). Too often recently I've hovered over a thread, thinking, "Do I want to read this, or will I just read a bunch of trollbait that'll piss me off?" Especially when the Usual Suspects derail an interesting topic into a complete, repetitive flamewar, and any valid or interesting points get lost in the sidelines.
Hmmm.
Consider the reasons why you left for three weeks because the activity you where involved in then effects whether or not an ignore feature is really legitimate (IMO of course).If what your really looking for is something you plan to read but not participate in yourself then an ignore feature is great. It becomes more of an issue if your actually participating, especially if your participating in a debate, even more especially if the debate is on something of a contentious issue, one which discusses ideas or concepts you actually value.
At that point I seriously question if its ethically OK to filter out opposing points of views, even distasteful opposing viewpoints, while still engaging in the debate itself. For one its not fair to the others involved in the debate - who presume that you know where the debate is heading and have considered all the points of view currently involved. Its perfectly fine to leave of course but much less so to continue with the discussion as if some of the posters are not there.
Hey, Ignore kills trolls and lets be honest, some of us love trolls. The flames keep Mr. Fishy warm and the flesh and hide of trolls feed and cloth Mr. Fishy's guppies. Don't drive the trolls to extintion, trolls have rights too. Just exercise some selfcontrol. Like in Kindergarden, don't hit back.
Is Mr. Fishy a usual suspect? Mr. Fishy hopes so because Mr. Fishy is a shameless attention whore. SHAMELESS!
Hey, Ignore kills trolls and lets be honest, some of us love trolls. The flames keep Mr. Fishy warm and the flesh and hide of trolls feed and cloth Mr. Fishy's guppies. Don't drive the trolls to extintion, trolls have rights too. Just exercise some selfcontrol. Like in Kindergarden, don't hit back.
Is Mr. Fishy a usual suspect? Mr. Fishy hopes so because Mr. Fishy is a shameless attention whore. SHAMELESS!
Mr. Fishy, ignoring your wit and wisdom would be a sin dire enough to deserve smiting by the great Fishy Gods themselves. :)
I understand your love for Trolls. But me, I gotta say... if we can't have an Ignore button, can we have fire and acid instead? ;)
Mr. Fishy is going to quote you on that, Death Quaker.
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<--- #1 Mr. Fishy fan.
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Unfortunately, I can think of some cases where an ignore feature really would be useful for some folks. Those cases wouldn't be so much about quieting opposing views as it would be not having to put up with stalkers, griefers, and people who latch onto a certain subject and just will not let go until they've had their say on every single instance of that subject's discussion. You know. When the thread is about "X", and Mister Y absolutely has to point out he hates "X" when the thread is specifically geared towards those with positive attitudes towards "X" and who wish to discuss ideas on how to make "X" better or what can be done with "X".
I don't think I've ever used the ignore feature anywhere though, because otherwise I might not know when someone was being wrong on the internet and I would be unable to correct them. For their sake, you know?
I think this may be the first "we need an ignore feature" that didn't reference me as a reason for the request.
I must be losing my touch...
You wouldn't be on my ignore list Seb, a certain 4e Paladin would be, only so I wouldn't be incited to argue with him...though I've been able to resist commenting on certain threads for almost a year now.
not related to any SMURF either...
I'd rather have an 'ignore thread' feature, but that's just me ...
Oh and SMURF
I'm still waiting for an ignore feature that allows me to put myself onto others' ignore lists.
There are a couple real *&^$%#@s who should never - ever - respond to me. :D
One problem I would have with an "Ignore" feature - and this problem also applies to ignoring someone the old fashioned way - is that it could interfere with a fair debate.
User A: Here's my argument. Can anyone refute that?
User B: Here's my rebuttal. What do you think? You got a counterargument?
User A: Hah! I knew it! No one can find a flaw in my logic!
User B: I just did! Can't you read...? Aw, crum! I must be on A's "Ignore" list!
I can only imagine once someone realizes they are being ignored, that they make indirect attacks in reference to the ignoree on various posts, until they bait someone else to respond, that person is added and so on and so on.
Part of the discussion board is the ask questions and be publicly validated, but there is always a dark side to everything.
Mr. Fishy has troll points? Right? Seriously, Mr, Fishy troll high score?
Vote Fishy for Troll King...What does Mr. Fishy have to do?
If Mr. Fishy gets 100 troll points does he get a prize?
What about shameless attention whore point do we have those?
Were the hell is VW? These are important questions...to Mr. Fishy.
It's too bad Mr. Fishy never seems to post around these boards anymore... ;-)
One problem I would have with an "Ignore" feature - and this problem also applies to ignoring someone the old fashioned way - is that it could interfere with a fair debate.
User A: Here's my argument. Can anyone refute that?
User B: Here's my rebuttal. What do you think? You got a counterargument?
User A: Hah! I knew it! No one can find a flaw in my logic!
User B: I just did! Can't you read...? Aw, crum! I must be on A's "Ignore" list!
While that may be a problem, I find that the people who think their logic is flawless have their own internal "ignore" feature, which keeps them from perceiving any valid arguments before them, even if one was being shoved right into their face. ;)
Hence, for people like that, they'd be ignoring the valid arguments anyway, so it doesn't really matter whether they actually used the "ignore" feature or not. :)
I agree, however, of course the implementation of such a feature does come with the possible cost of over looking a good argument. That's probably why most of these features at other message boards collapse the ignoree's posts by default, but you can expand them if you like to read them.
Mr. Fishy has troll points? Right? Seriously, Mr, Fishy troll high score?
Vote Fishy for Troll King...What does Mr. Fishy have to do?
If Mr. Fishy gets 100 troll points does he get a prize?
What about shameless attention whore point do we have those?
Were the hell is VW? These are important questions...to Mr. Fishy.
yerr tryne too hard.
I can only imagine once someone realizes they are being ignored, that they make indirect attacks in reference to the ignoree on various posts, until they bait someone else to respond, that person is added and so on and so on.
Part of the discussion board is the ask questions and be publicly validated, but there is always a dark side to everything.
And I am that dark side. S Pankerton O'Heathy. Validate me.
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I think that from the utter lack of anybody at Paizo saying anything, coupled with earlier (if memory serves me correctly) statements that the powers-that-be aren't interested in an "ignore" fuction, this sentence is too long and I forgot what I was even tring to say.
So, here goes:
I am become that which must be ignored.
They WILL instipate a ingore fuction, but it will be tll late.
I will be etched in their brain like the hot tip of a welding tip thingy that you stared at too long.
RPG Superstar 2015 Top 16, RPG Superstar 2013 Top 16
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They WILL instipate a ingore fuction, but it will be tll late.
I like the idea of an "ingore" function. Somebody pisses you off on the boards, you press a button, they get eviscerated in a blinding flash of gore. They should constipate one immediately.
I just don't think an Ignore function is the way to go. Paizo is a good place. If you want to report all the people who are trolling, I'm sure the mods will be happy to carry out that request and catch a few more bad guys. :P
The thing is, one of the reasons I love Paizo is because they're so reluctant to pass judgement. There was this one site I visited (I won't mention its name)whose forum I just couldn't stand. They had a bunch of crazy rules, like 'no mentioning politics' (any politics, no matter how outdated), no spamming (not so crazy, but it is when you see how harshly they take it)and no complaining about the rules (which was eventually the reason I got banned.
They had this big system for banning if you committed too many offenses, and yes, they had an ignore button. Paizo isn't like that. You can talk about politics, as long as you stay civil, you can complain about rules, you can yell at Paizo staff (though this allowance has yet to be taken, I hope)...more importantly, they believe in second chances. They don't ban for a bunch of little things. In fact, I don't remember a single ban. They only ban, I expect, if somebody goes hugely too far.
Paizo is just more forgiving than most websites, and if they added an Ignore option, I think they'd lose some of that.
I just don't think an Ignore function is the way to go. Paizo is a good place. If you want to report all the people who are trolling, I'm sure the mods will be happy to carry out that request and catch a few more bad guys. :P
The thing is, one of the reasons I love Paizo is because they're so reluctant to pass judgement.
+1
There was this one site I visited (I won't mention its name)whose forum I just couldn't stand. They had a bunch of crazy rules, like 'no mentioning politics' (any politics, no matter how outdated)...
Carthage must cease to be!
Paizo isn't like that. You can talk about politics, as long as you stay civil, you can complain about rules, you can yell at Paizo staff (though this allowance has yet to be taken, I hope)...
Oh, I'd say some people "yell at" the Paizo staff, if such a description could apply to the written word. I, myself, got into one heated argument with several Paizo staffers, who nevertheless kept their composure and kept their replies civil. I now wish that I had been a little less nasty in that thread... but still, I was allowed to speak my mind, and OMG Paizo actually LISTENED to me! That's one of the reasons I'm a Paizo fan.
...They don't ban for a bunch of little things. In fact, I don't remember a single ban. They only ban, I expect, if somebody goes hugely too far.
I believe that you COULD go hugely too far - for instance, you could fill a post with bigotry, libel, profanity, and illegal material - and the Paizo staff will simply delete your post and put up a warning to cut it out. It won't get you banned. Many times, I've seen a thread go on for PAGES full of flaming and trolling that literally made me physically nauseous before the Paizo staff resorted to stepping in and shutting the thread down.
And that's part of what I love about this website. Sorry, DeathQuaker, but I'm firmly in the opposition camp.
And I am that dark side. S Pankerton O'Heathy. Validate me.I can only imagine once someone realizes they are being ignored, that they make indirect attacks in reference to the ignoree on various posts, until they bait someone else to respond, that person is added and so on and so on.
Part of the discussion board is the ask questions and be publicly validated, but there is always a dark side to everything.
::Leaves a pint of stout in the thread::
So, right now I see three possible responses to a flamer/troll:
Smurf the smurfing jerks! Smurf them to smurf!
Report them.
Ignore them manually (without using a function). This one is the best, but it's also the hardest, and I'm not sure I could manage it.
WOO-HOO!
Back on smurfin' track.
Carthage must cease to be!
Delende est Carthago? First Mairkurion joins with the Marian faction, now this!
Fer Smurf's Sake!
Crazy smurfers. Oh well, as long as we smurfmember the smurfin' trolls, we'll be smurfed.
What the smurf?
What the smurf?
Watch your smurfuage!
What the smurf?
WTS!
WWSD?
Carthage must cease to be!
Delende est Carthago? First Mairkurion joins with the Marian faction, now this!
Fer Smurf's Sake!
It's not enough to only be the First Man in Pathfinder Fiction.
Smurf no!
S'allright, Aaron. I knew when I posted this not everyone would agree. I still felt it was worth discussing. I'll hold to my POV, but I certainly understand where you're coming from.
Me, I like this place, but my main complaint is that there isn't enough moderation or rules. I have a feeling I know the place kobold cleaver is talking about (or at least a very similar place) and I thought that place was fantastic, rules and administration wise. It just became pointless to frequent the place when I switched to Pathfinder; for obvious reasons, this is the place to be to talk about it.
Not everyone is going to agree on how many rules a forum should have and how strictly they should be enforced, that's a given. And I certainly know a lot of people would not like my vision of what a forum should be like in terms of rules and administration, and I'm not going to change their minds (nor do I want to).
But the fact that this place is more laid back in its moderation is actually exactly why I want an ignore feature here. Users can use the feature as an aid, taking matters into their own hands in a non-inflammatory way, rather than spam the flagging system and push the admins/moderators into putting a heavier foot down than they feel comfortable doing.
::Leaves a pint of stout in the thread::And I am that dark side. S Pankerton O'Heathy. Validate me.I can only imagine once someone realizes they are being ignored, that they make indirect attacks in reference to the ignoree on various posts, until they bait someone else to respond, that person is added and so on and so on.
Part of the discussion board is the ask questions and be publicly validated, but there is always a dark side to everything.
You have succoured the unseelie evinced by me....for the nonce.
Anon.youcan'tgetmypotofgoldyouspottygit!!!iblewitalloncrank!!!
HEHEHEHEHEHAHAHAHAHOOHOOHOOA!!!
S'allright, Aaron. I knew when I posted this not everyone would agree. I still felt it was worth discussing. I'll hold to my POV, but I certainly understand where you're coming from.
Me, I like this place, but my main complaint is that there isn't enough moderation or rules. I have a feeling I know the place kobold cleaver is talking about (or at least a very similar place) and I thought that place was fantastic, rules and administration wise. It just became pointless to frequent the place when I switched to Pathfinder; for obvious reasons, this is the place to be to talk about it.
Not everyone is going to agree on how many rules a forum should have and how strictly they should be enforced, that's a given. And I certainly know a lot of people would not like my vision of what a forum should be like in terms of rules and administration, and I'm not going to change their minds (nor do I want to).
But the fact that this place is more laid back in its moderation is actually exactly why I want an ignore feature here. Users can use the feature as an aid, taking matters into their own hands in a non-inflammatory way, rather than spam the flagging system and push the admins/moderators into putting a heavier foot down than they feel comfortable doing.
Yeah? Smurf you.
You smurfed me! Smurf you! You deserve to smurf a long and smurfly death on a deserted smurf! You are the smurfest smurf of smurf I have ever had the missmurfune to smurfcounter! I will smurf every night for your smurf!See, I think flaming is less smurfful this way.
Yeah? Smurf you.
You smurfed me! Smurf you! You deserve to smurf a long and smurfly death on a deserted smurf! You are the smurfest smurf of smurf I have ever had the missmurfune to smurfcounter! I will smurf every night for your smurf!See, I think flaming is less smurfful this way.
Have you been smurfing my wife?
Smurf you!Smurf me, smurf me, no smurf you!
Yeah? Smurf you.
You smurfed me! Smurf you! You deserve to smurf a long and smurfly death on a deserted smurf! You are the smurfest smurf of smurf I have ever had the missmurfune to smurfcounter! I will smurf every night for your smurf!See, I think flaming is less smurfful this way.
Have you been smurfing my wife?
Smurf you!
Smurf me, smurf me, no smurf you!
I'm going to smurf you if your don't smurf your smurfing smurf!
Carthage must cease to be!
Delende est Carthago? First Mairkurion joins with the Marian faction, now this!
Fer Smurf's Sake!
It's not enough to only be the First Man in Pathfinder Fiction.
Smurf no!
Better to rule in a small village in Gaul than be second in Rome... why do I have a feeling that someone could easily subsitute hell and heaven.
Better to rule in a small village in Gaul than be second in Rome... why do I have a feeling that someone could easily subsitute hell and heaven.Carthage must cease to be!
Delende est Carthago? First Mairkurion joins with the Marian faction, now this!
Fer Smurf's Sake!
It's not enough to only be the First Man in Pathfinder Fiction.
Smurf no!
That was an Asterix reference, wasn't it?
Smurfy!
There was this one site I visited (I won't mention its name)whose forum I just couldn't stand. They had a bunch of crazy rules, like 'no mentioning politics' (any politics, no matter how outdated), no spamming (not so crazy, but it is when you see how harshly they take it)and no complaining about the rules (which was eventually the reason I got banned.
They had this big system for banning if you committed too many offenses, and yes, they had an ignore button. Paizo isn't like that. You can talk about politics, as long as you stay civil, you can complain about rules, you can yell at Paizo staff (though this allowance has yet to be taken, I hope)...more importantly, they believe in second chances. They don't ban for a bunch of little things. In fact, I don't remember a single ban. They only ban, I expect, if somebody goes hugely too far.
What does that have to do with Paizo having an Ignore feature available to users?
This feature wouldn't affect anybody besides the person choosing to use it, any more than people are affected by other posters choosing to ignore their posts after wasting their own and paizo's bandwidth downloading their post texts.
There was this one site I visited (I won't mention its name)whose forum I just couldn't stand. They had a bunch of crazy rules, like 'no mentioning politics' (any politics, no matter how outdated), no spamming (not so crazy, but it is when you see how harshly they take it)and no complaining about the rules (which was eventually the reason I got banned.
They had this big system for banning if you committed too many offenses, and yes, they had an ignore button. Paizo isn't like that. You can talk about politics, as long as you stay civil, you can complain about rules, you can yell at Paizo staff (though this allowance has yet to be taken, I hope)...more importantly, they believe in second chances. They don't ban for a bunch of little things. In fact, I don't remember a single ban. They only ban, I expect, if somebody goes hugely too far.
What does that have to do with Paizo having an Ignore feature available to users?
This feature wouldn't affect anybody besides the person choosing to use it, any more than people are affected by other posters choosing to ignore their posts after wasting their own and paizo's bandwidth downloading their post texts.
But, you see, it affects somebody else: The person who's ignored. And when he's ignored wrongly, or later wants to apologize, it's unfair. It creates a confrontational mood when somebody ignores the other and said other keeps trying to speak. So either the person tells the ignored person he's been ignored, thus annoying that person because he can't get them to stop ignoring him and hear him out, or he doesn't tell him, and the guy keeps talking until he works it out, at which point he's just wasted a lot of time arguing and may try to complain to the ignorer anyways. :/
If the request is simply for a local ignore (collapse/hide posts from people the reader finds objectionable) then a little Greasemonkey script would probably do the trick.
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/748/
The structure of the HTML on the threads looks like it would lend itself to this purpose. If people are interested, I might take a crack at writing one to implement this request.
@anothermage: If you are able to do such a thing, I'd be very interested in using that!
Likely, it would only work with specific avatars, but better than nothing.
I don't see any confrontation in other forums where I use their ignore functions to make the web page display conform to my personal preferences (and I am actually conscientious in only pushing the ignore button when it is truly necessary, and removing posters from it after consideration). There's no confrontation because there is no interaction. You don't walk into a bar and force people to engage you. This is simply a technological implementation of the same concept, and and extension of the fact that posters currently ARE ignored by other posters, this is just cutting down on the clicking/scrolling necessary to get past the posts you're not interested in seeing longer.
As anothermage points out, this can be done INDEPENDENTLY of paizo, so there's not much point in whining about it, it's just a matter of convenience as to if it's accessable directly in paizo's site or requires an add-on script.
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I think having an individual "collapse post" feature would great. Doesn't need to be an ignore feature for a specific poster - just collapse all the posts you don't want to read -maybe it's 2 pages of little blue trolls, insightful or funny quips & "zing" comments, sockpuppet spam, deliberate threadjacks and derails ; filter all that and you can reduce the size of threads considerably.
Could be tied to specific posts or a filter to omit specific posters for that thread. Of course if someone wanted to omit the same posters from every thread then you would have your ignore feature.
I don't see any confrontation...
Smurfportant word has been smurfed for emphasis.
I don't see any confrontation...Smurfportant word has been smurfed for emphasis.
Very interesting word to hilight, since nobody is requesting anything that affects what other's see at all. If you can't see anything different, how can any confrontation start?
I mean, you're not offended by the fact I MIGHT have GreaseMonkey'd your avatar to appear as George W. Bush in a Thong, are you? After all, you don't see what is on my screen, only what is on yours.From another_mage's information, this is 100% possible by user's own extensions/scripts, thus it is as likely as it is not that some users are ALREADY running their own "ignore" scripts. So perhaps you are already late showing up for the confrontation...
Users can use the feature as an aid, taking matters into their own hands in a non-inflammatory way, rather than spam the flagging system and push the admins/moderators into putting a heavier foot down than they feel comfortable doing.
And in my view, implementing an "Ignore" feature is actually MORE heavy-handed than deleting individual posts on a case-by-case basis. It means that the judgement is taken out of the moderators' hands. And as Kobold Cleaver pointed out, it takes away the power even to apologize.
And that's one of the many things I love about the Paizo online community: It's remarkable how many times I've seen someone on these boards say "I'm sorry, I was out of line," and continue the debate in a civil tone. Sometimes, a simple message of "Watch it" is enough to prompt such an apology. At other times, it takes as much as a post deletion or even a thread-lock to do it. That sometimes results in another post (or in the case of thread-lock, the creation of a new thread) that begins with an apology and a message with the offensive stuff removed. Yes, it does happen, and it smooths things over. Whereas the use of an "Ignore" feature would leave nothing but animosity, both for the ignorer and the ignoree, because the latter, as others have pointed out, might figure out that (s)he's being ignored.
(And besides, Paizo has so many enhancements on their to-do list, and so little time to get to them, so maybe their time should be spent on features that are less controversial.)