How often do you put people on this board on "Ignore?"

Huh. I have 25 people on my ignore list, but I think most are long gone.

I am considering taking one person off the list and adding another one. But that's not high on my priority list.

Mostly it's not because of what they say but how they say it. I'm all for thoughtful discourse of ideas if there is respect on both sides. But 25 times so far I've said, "Nope, no need to read that anymore."

I have done the experiment several times where I can peek at what someone on ignore has posted, without taking them off ignore. 99% of the time, it just reaffirms why I put them on ignore in the first place. (The 1% of the time is the person who should probably come off ignore. Whatever it was that bothered me about them seems to have just been a passing thing.

There are still a bunch of very thoughtful people left that I still read and appreciate nearly every day.

2Cor521
 
SecondCor521 said:
...

I have done the experiment several times where I can peek at what someone on ignore has posted, without taking them off ignore. 99% of the time, it just reaffirms why I put them on ignore in the first place. (The 1% of the time is the person who should probably come off ignore. Whatever it was that bothered me about them seems to have just been a passing thing.

There are still a bunch of very thoughtful people left that I still read and appreciate nearly every day.

2Cor521
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Exactly
 
SecondCor521 said:
Huh. I have 25 people on my ignore list, but I think most are long gone.

I am considering taking one person off the list and adding another one. But that's not high on my priority list.

Mostly it's not because of what they say but how they say it. I'm all for thoughtful discourse of ideas if there is respect on both sides. But 25 times so far I've said, "Nope, no need to read that anymore."

I have done the experiment several times where I can peek at what someone on ignore has posted, without taking them off ignore. 99% of the time, it just reaffirms why I put them on ignore in the first place. (The 1% of the time is the person who should probably come off ignore. Whatever it was that bothered me about them seems to have just been a passing thing.

There are still a bunch of very thoughtful people left that I still read and appreciate nearly every day.

2Cor521
Click to expand...


25 people on ignore? Wow!
 
It would be interesting to see how many cross-ignores there are -- where A ignores B and B ignores A.

Coach
 
RonBoyd said:
Oh! How sad.
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What's so sad about it? I don't want to watch TV shows or listen to radio stations that annoy me. Why would I want to read posts from posters who annoy me? I'm hear to learn and be entertained. I'll definitely read posts from people with opposing views to learn. It's mostly the people who have virtually nothing useful to say, or are incapable (in my view) of posting in a way that's constructive and/or not combative who go on my ignore list. I recognize that some people just push my buttons the wrong way, and I'm better off ignoring them then getting into it with them. My whole experience is better with a bit of filtering. If someone wants more filtering to make their experience better, fine for them.

I have 11. Most are probably gone. At least a couple still post. Sometimes I view their posts and still see nothing at all of value. :whistle:
 
Everyone who participates here posts for different reasons. Some are here for financial advice, some are here for personal advice, some to [-]pr[/-]teach, some to learn. Others just want the companionship and enjoy the camaraderie. Everyone has their own particular interests, and can choose what they want to read, who they want to ignore, and whether or not they want to respond to any given thread, post, or forum member.

There are a lot of well-informed, misinformed and ill-informed posts on a wide variety of topics, updated continually. Everyone has their own style of posting; some just want to joke around, others want to be deadly serious, some strike a balance between the two. Same for political, social, and economic positions. It's that balanced cross-section of society that make this forum so interesting and entertaining, and the overall civility is what makes it work so well- Credit for that goes to the mods and the individual members alike; this is a fine group of people who, for the most part love this forum and care about each other. That is evidenced by the compassionate responses, the occasional poke in the eye, and the level of engagement on nearly every thread. Many extended families don't get along this well.

Everyone who posts here does so expecting a response of some kind; you need to go into it expecting that there will be differences of opinion, and that you are never going to get the last word- only Porky Pig gets that privilege.

Sure, there are going to be differences, but at the end of the day most members got what they came here for (information and entertainment) and received fair value for what they paid (nothing).

There are posters here that I disagree with philosophically, but I like to read their point of view. There are others who I agree with philosophically, but can't stand to read their posts. I am certain I affect others the same way. That's life.

My 2cents, FWIW. We now return to our regularly scheduled programming, a discussion of ignorance.:LOL:
 
I don't have an Ignore List. At least I didn't. Looks like I'll have to start one now, unfortunately.
Like Medieval Europe, the plague has returned for another round. It can't seem to stay away :sick: :yuk:
 
Never took the trouble to learn how to ignore anybody:). Not that I would have. People here are very polite. On the other hand I pretty much only read the Other Topics thread. Blame it on my being foreign, in bad shape, cynical and..... a quasi philistine:LOL:
 
If I want to ignore someone on here, I just well, ignore their posts...........I don't need a cybernetic tool to ignore a "tool"............:)
 
Orchidflower said:
Often wondered who uses the "Ignore" feature on this board. Being a strong believer in "keep your friends close, but keep your enemies closer" philosophy, I would never put anyone on ignore.:angel: Just wondering if this is a common practice with most here? And why?
(I've been curious about this for forever it seems, so today I ask.)
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RonBoyd said:
I am in this camp also. I have never put anyone (or thread) on ignore and cannot imagine a circumstance where I would. There are, of course, those posts and threads that get skipped over quite quickly but none I would want to hide in the closet. On the flip-side, I can easily see myself on someone's (no one in particular) list -- however, that would create a behavior-modifying situation.
Along that line, I have always wondered why the "ignored" party is not notified of being "ignored." The "ignore" button serves no useful purpose that I can see unless it has a positive and (and perhaps public) effect.
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W2R said:
I can't put anyone on ignore, due to my Admin duties. But if I decided to step down, I would seriously consider putting half a dozen on ignore. On the other hand, I might just DIE of curiousity if I did! :D
Quite a lot of our regular members use the "ignore" feature, and we do recommend it if one is often goaded into unwise retorts (or into nearly making unwise retorts) by the same person. It's a great feature and has made the board a much more pleasant place for some.
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SecondCor521 said:
Mostly it's not because of what they say but how they say it. I'm all for thoughtful discourse of ideas if there is respect on both sides. But 25 times so far I've said, "Nope, no need to read that anymore."
I have done the experiment several times where I can peek at what someone on ignore has posted, without taking them off ignore. 99% of the time, it just reaffirms why I put them on ignore in the first place.
Click to expand...
Oh, how quickly our institutional memory forgets the dark, sad days when H**us was a moderator, or when the Soapbox reigned unchecked.

I have 44 posters on my "Ignore Poster" list. Perhaps they're posters emeritus now, I can't tell, but I do know that at least half of them have met their inevitable demise after I added them to my list. I'm still accepting applications, and I'm a big fan of using the list for a board of this size.

E-R.org now has over 10,000 registered posters and at least 1000 who've put up a post. It updates nearly 100 threads per day with several hundred posts. If you've been here for a few years you may remember the days when it was a nice little family picnic or perhaps a quiet neighborhood bar. Now it resembles a huge screaming nightclub underneath a highway overpass being repaired by jackhammer operators on crystal meth.

In other words, with such a raucous environment where it now takes a significant amount of time for moderators to arrive on the scene, let alone taser a troll who desperately deserves it, we posters should have our own non-lethal moderation tools. I'm all for concealed carry.

In my moderator days the spammers & trolls were bad enough. (I can see that almost no one remembers mike-1 or Max or OAP, which is also a good thing.) I didn't enjoy having to read every post every day. I quickly tired of having to deal with posters who couldn't stop playing their one-note keyboard. I also didn't enjoy having to take aside the occasional poster who I still regard as a friend and saying "Um, we think you need to tone it down a little."

So in "moderator ER", I enjoy not being obligated to read every post. I enjoy not having to put up with blatant ads or rude posters. I also enjoy not having to put up with those who would never stop pounding on their one-key pianos. And when three or four of them thread-bomb one of the discussions that I'm interested in, I don't have to waste my time scrolling through their writings. Sometimes five or six posts go by in a row before I get back to a thoughtful comment.

The moderators have a tough enough job without having us nitpick them about posters who should be banned but haven't yet managed to cross the line. For example, there's a small but rising number of posters who are remarkably "content-free". (Remember Newguy?) They may not blatantly offend but their contributions do not enhance the content of a thread. I test this hypothesis by adding them to my "Ignore" list and then waiting to see if I'm tempted to click the "View Post" link on their posts. Usually a couple tests confirms the wisdom of the original decision.

A few of the board's posters aren't here to discuss. They're here to pontificate, disclaim, lecture, admonish, and otherwise impose their view of the world independent of objective evidence to the contrary. I may stick with them for the first 50-100 posts to see if I can evoke some sort of conversation, but when they insist on telling it the way they wish it is then I'm done with them.

A final category of posters who are swiftly added to my "Ignore" list is the "Internet news readers". These are the posters who link to the latest current events (usually with naked links or a semantically-null comment like "Wow!") but who do not add anything to the story. In other words, they're basically reading the news to me without making it any better. (You parents of teenagers know what I mean.) For some reason they seem to focus overmuch on the "doom & gloom" news instead of highlighting bacon, puppies, & rainbows. I can get enough doom & gloom from the rest of the Internet.

Here's another reason that I swiftly apply my "Ignore" list. I have this persistent fantasy that the moderators keep an eye on the "Ignore" rankings and apply this criteria in deciding which posters are heading for emeritus status. If the majority of the board is ignoring them because they can't follow the rules of polite participation, then why allow their membership?

Rustic23 said:
I would like to see a forum ban list. much like the Members list, just the handle and how many people have them on ban. I think if people knew they were offending larger or even small portions of the community the might re-think their post. However, some might just try harder.
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Rustic23 said:
I guess we are looking at it from two points of view. I am not looking for public shaming. I think that if people know they are offending someone, most would change the tenor of their post. If I saw a few people had me on their ban list, it would be one thing, but if I saw I was on a hundred of so, I would have to think long and hard about the way I post.
Click to expand...
Exactly.

I think that the E-R.org members list should show a member's status. Not just "confused about dryer sheets" or "moderator emeritus" but whether they're banned (it used to show this), on "hiatus", or even how many infraction points they have. If they're going to be punished then make it public so that the rest of the board can avoid their mistakes... or can appreciate what goes into being a moderator.

I think it'd be great to have a public listing of who's being ignored. It's probably not helpful to know who's ignoring you but it'd definitely be a warning sign to see that you're being ignored by 248 posters. It would also help if we could categorize our reasons for "Ignore" like "blatant spammer" or "troll" or "content-free". If everyone could see who was being ignored, and perhaps why, then the court of public opinion could swiftly render a referendum for the moderator's consideration.

As an alternative, when a poster is ignored by a significant number of people then perhaps they would earn a note from the moderators: "Hey, Nords, you just had your 100th poster add you to their 'Ignore' list. When you reach 125 then you're no longer allowed to post. Please contact us if you honestly can't understand why you're so unpopular and we'll review the poster comments with you. Best wishes, the Mod Team."

One of the reasons that I find it very hard to spend any length of time at Bogleheads and Raddr's is because the board software is so old and "feature-free". Upgrading to vBulletin and adding an "Ignore Poster" list would make the experience much more enjoyable.

One more feature about "Ignore Poster" that most may not be aware of: vBulletin appears to be designed so that if someone is ignoring you then they'll never receive your PMs. It will allow you to send PMs to them, but they'll never arrive and you'll never know that they didn't arrive. The only way to contact someone who's ignoring you is to send them an e-mail.
 
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