Disable the ignore function

Possible downside: users can restrict the ability to view their profile to only people they follow, so most people would not be able to view anything on their profile. (I don't know if mods are exempt from this restriction or not on others' profiles, though I believe they can use that setting for their own profiles.)

On an unrelated note, this setting creates problems in another area, namely, the ability to view whether a user has been renamed and what their previous names were (which is supposed to be public information). But that's a different discussion.

 

No, you're using the passive aggressive feature, which is the opposite.

 

The scope for abusing the ignore feature would be wider if nasty users and (purely theoretical) nasty mods or admins had the ability to see who is ignoring who. I've seen it happen elsewhere (typically in forums with numbers in their names).

If our ignore feature was inexplicably removed (in opposition to common sense and popular opinion), I guess users would have to rely more on things like Greasemonkey or Commentblocker (which are out of the mods control in the same way the Xf ignore function currently is) - and correct me if I'm wrong, but any abuse you can imagine using Xenforo's integrated ignore feature could be carried out browser-side using a third party plugin or JS script. Actually if a clique/in-group decided to bully someone out by ignoring them, they could do this using only some private message system (email, IM, telephone) and determination.

I can't see some of the standard abuses of two-way ignore features working here, as users cannot ignore a mod or admin, and even if they could, the ignored can still see the ignorer. On other platforms it's possible to make yourself invisible to mods (not sure about admins) by ignoring them. As far as I can tell, that's not an issue here, and that's a positive thing. If you wanted to be invisible to the mods by hacking Xf's ignore feature, you'd have to make sure you also somehow made the 'show ignored content' and 'ignored user' text and links invisible without it being massively obvious that something was wrong, and I think that would be tricky.

Taunting a user you have on ignore would be an abuse all right, but functionally speaking no different to quoting and posting tl;dr, depending on the context. A matter of etiquette that's not particular to the ignore feature.

Regarding a limit on number of people ignored, putting aside the obvious point that it's not really anyone's business how many people person X is ignoring (with or without technological enhancement), it doesn't look like it's a practical option right now. I question the practical benefits of imposing such a rule or guideline anyway. As a general point of etiquette, maybe, but individuals use the ignore feature in different ways and there isn't a single form of etiquette that you can force everyone to comply to all the time anyway. What's considered civil discourse and witty banter by some is considered abuse and trolling by others, and you cannot effectively legislate for that. Does that make sense?

 

Aren't you de facto legislating by way of the ignore feature anyway?

 

Only for myself, if that's how you mean it. When X ignores Y, X does not impose standards of behaviour on Y.

 

Yes, that's how I meant it, correct. Because it's hard to conclude that BigAl, in Barriss' example, was avoiding trolling behaviour. But he's implemented a standard which implies he felt trolled, if that makes sense?

 

I don't recall that example off the top of my head.

Let me put it another way: You cannot enforce a rule stating that one personality is not allowed to clash with another, or that you're not allowed to get upset.

 

No, but you can enforce civility in discourse.

So the example Barriss cited had BigAl erroneously claim Marvel rebooted its universe. He was corrected on this by blackmyron, but acted as if the correction never occurred because without it his point collapsed. Myron again pointed out the error and BigAl used ignore.

This is frankly ridiculous and an abuse of the feature.

But to your earlier point; if you give a carte blanche authorisation to your user base to individually decide whom they opt out of reading, you are legislating at the individual level standards in discussion.

 

Really important stuff then. It's also not behaviour that's unique to or dependant on the ignore feature.

It's ridiculous, sure, but equally ridiculous to get upset over it, and it would be more ridiculous to try to force anyone to conform to some arbitrary standard of personality.

 

The thing is that the ignore function, if used correctly, actually compliments the philosophical intention of the JCC as a communications medium that is inherently participatory and collective by allowing users to simply isolate certain users whilst maintaining contact with the rest. For example, if I had KW on ignore, I would still be participating in threads and responding to the 99.999999% of the rest of the JCC and so I would be somebody who participated and engaged with an overwhelming majority of users. If I had no ability to ignore KW, and KW kept baiting me in clever and subtle ways which avoided him from being banned, then I would just up and leave. Leaving the boards is much more antithetical to the notion of the JCC as being a medium that is participatory and collective. Better to have somebody participate with 99.9999999% of the JCC than not have them participate at all IMHO.

For that reason alone I completely disagree with JTS's views on the ignore function as being a broken feature.

 

But we do just that. We force people to use a very chaste vocabulary, ostensibly to make the site family friendly (though you must be over 13 to register) but also because the original TOS had to conform to Josh Griffin's religiously influenced conservatism.

That's the thing with a message board; it's a private enterprise which is free and able to set its own parameters for acceptable behaviours. Certainly personalities will fall below the standards set out by the Administration (as voluntary representatives of the owner) and be banned accordingly (this is the point where I acknowledge you're looking at me with one eyebrow raised and I confirm, why yes, me).

So in that sense? It's absolutely reasonable to mandate behavioural patterns and types and to enforce/not enforce them accordingly. When someone returns after a decade long absence, the Community forum is utterly without remorse in making that person feel unwelcome and a little vainglorious (I've, surprisingly, called it out before as needlessly anti-social) for making a thread about it. But the Community area also does not make allowances for more delicate personalities and has a far different threshold for interaction than other areas.

in a sense, V2, you've helped crystalise my thinking. The forums absolutely are a conditional enterprise - you post in exchange for compliance with a set of rules and policies. If there is a problem that cannot be overcome with good moderation, then it's not unreasonable for JTS et al to suggest it's problematic and will go. Moreover, the agreement that is formed between the user and the site when they sign up includes ongoing compliance with, and understanding of, the TOS. The way the TOS is worded does not implicitly condone the use of the ignore feature.

Arguably, in fact, points 1, 2 and 3 expressly exclude the ignore feature as part of the intent for the site:

1) TheForce.Net and the Jedi Council Forums (JC) desires to create a family-friendly atmosphere of discussion for people of all ages. Visitors are encouraged to be on their best behavior to help maintain this atmosphere.
2) Users are expected to conduct themselves in a manner which is respectful to themselves and fellow users at all times. Users are also expected to respect all relevant laws, including intellectual property and privacy laws. This includes not posting anything that violates any law or that encourages conduct constituting a criminal offense including theft of copyright, trademark or other proprietary right without the express permission of the owner(s) of said copyright, trademark or other proprietary right.
3) Users are expected to take responsibility for their own behavior on the Jedi Council Forums, both public and private, and the consequences thereof.

Furthermore, the Rules of the JC also are silent on any rights or guidelines of use of an ignore feature. Bear in mind, Rule 1 under the heading "Posting Rules and Regulations" was updated to include hate speech following on from my sexism policy thread from 2014 so it is an updated document with regular review.

And point 8 expressly deals with situations like the BigAl ignore, and arguably, the Mr44/KW ignore:

8. Baiting or intentionally stirring up other users isn't allowed. Debates are fine, but argue with the point, not the person. Threads with no purpose other than flaming, subtle or otherwise, will be closed. It's important to remember, however, that a person disagreeing with your opinion is *not* trolling. Try to keep it civil even if you're sure the other person is wrong.

Implicit in the bolded is that you are not entitled to insulate yourself from opinions different to your own.

We've actually already had guidelines against the ignore feature, and what I'm seeing from the Mod/Admin response was that it was implemented because it came with the software and not because they decided it was actually good for the forums in the long term.

 

As you say yourself, it'd be really hard to implement, and something like that shouldn't be accessible by the general user base. There's way to much potential abuse in there. Plus we'd still have to brave the database to be able to check the ignore lists anyway.

Agreed. Users shouldn't be able to see the ignore lists. About the administration being able to see the list... well, I'm afraid you'd have to deal with that. I know you don't like being called on this, but it borders on paranoia. We can already see your IP and e-mail addresses, for example, and that's information that I personally consider considerably more personal. That kind of access comes with the terrain, I'm afraid.

I'm not sure I follow you here. So, because people can use third-party plugins to behave like idiots we should say "ah whatever it's a lost cause"? Should the law stop going after tax evaders because, eh, they could start robbing gas stations instead? That's not how things work. I can't think of any sane administrator that would act like that.

Yes, and if we keep the ignore feature I'd be in favor of treating it like that, as a "+1" or "tl;dr". Basically how we have been treating it, even though perhaps we haven't enforced the rule as consistently as we should have.

As Ramza said, there's no way to impose that numerical limit, so the point is moot.

The thing is, what you said is not at all the reason I consider the feature broken, so you might disagree with me but I don't see how that could be the reason. I've never said in here that the ignore feature is counter-productive or going against the spirit of JCCness: that's Ender's talking point. My reasons are purely technical.

 

Oh OK, my apologies.

 

I'm not sure that our points don't compliment each other JTS. In that you would need to rewrite the ToS and the Rules of the JC to contemplate the ignore feature, and even then you would not be able to put any controls in place to ensure

a) compliance with the guidelines and
b) that you have visibility over its use.

Doing a bit of residual risk analysis, having a feature that is ungoverned, rife with potential for abuse, and incapable of giving you any insight would be residually High Risk (likelihood: Very; Severity: Severe. See: http://cdn2.hubspot.net/hub/208634/file-242659186-png/images/risk-matrix.png).

Conversely, removing the feature and prompting a small portion of users to feel there's no avenue available to them but leave? Likelihood: Likely. Severity: Moderate. Residual Risk: Medium.

To be quite frank, as was noted we last for 12 years without the feature; we will not be facing an unsustainable attrition rate, and the ToS/Rules very clearly intimate that the pre-ignore framework is capable of dealing with issues. If you're bullied, report them. If you just don't want to bother talking to them? Sorry, that's a breach of your obligations under the ToS. Whilst we could strengthen guidance around preventing bullying, it is clearly the case now that bullying and harassment are punishable offences.

That there's no capacity to monitor any of this at the MS level is a significant concern as I think we laboured under the misapprehension that mods could enforce any guidelines we proposed. In the absence of any controls framework around the feature's use, I would agree with JTS that it's a broken feature.

 

Ender, you have this tendency to apply principles of enterprise risk management to the JCC. I see no relevance at all. I too am a risk management professional and in fact I personally drafted my company's risk appetite, risk register and risk management statement in acordance with APRA prudential standards. I cut my teeth on inherent risk/residual risk analysis and crafted every treatment and control in the risk register. I speak the language and lecture to law firms on applying enterprise risk management to their law practice.

Please stop. You've made some good points already without having to resort to this kind of nonsense.

 

Lost we should talk risk some time.

But you know that most of the issues here basically have some sort of control to mitigate the issue. Pushing the requirement to view blocked content on the ignorer and away from the other users is a control that mitigates the issue/risk associated with a spat between user X and Y impacting on others. The ignore feature and/or revised bullying and harassment guidelines are controls against the risk of unchecked bullying and harassment.

Nothing though exists to get around the lack of visibility the mods have. Plus I needed to get my brain out of hating risk - I'm doing a SOX controls assurance piece. Bloody yanks.

 

We have already seen in this thread that bullying and harassment where the TOS is not breached, cannot be overcome with good moderation, but the response from yourself and the Mod Squad is apparently "live with it."

Why one rule for one item, and not for the other?

 

Is that not why we flagged the inadequacy in the current policy?

 

I don't feel that it should be raised as an example for one matter, when it cannot be applied universally.

 

But similarly the ignore can't be applied universally either, right? I mean isn't that what the issue I raised with the point with the rules?

 

For the record, Mod Squad is still debating the issue.

 

Ah, I was referring to instances where users have gone to mods for help, and the mods have been unable to help, due to the TOS not being breached.

 

Gotcha.

 

I'm disappointed that we went through a lively and constructive discussion, only to have it amount to nothing in the end. I'm likewise disappointed about the fixation on what could be, rather than what is. Yes, I understand the reasons, and so on etc. I'm unconvinced, and stand by what I've said.

Having said that, I accept whatever you all decide to do.

I think the onus will be on the administration to more effectively deal with certain situations if the ignore feature is no longer available.

 

Delusional suspicions such as you display towards me are actually a recognised symptom of paranoia. If I have misunderstood what admins can and cannot see, that's perhaps some failure of comprehension or oversight on my part, but the impression I've got based on what people have said is that mods AND admin cannot see who is ignoring who. So admins can? Cool. Perhaps you could collate that information into some sort of statistic that could shed some light onto the nature of the ignore 'issue'.

... This argument makes no sense at all.

The ignore function only enhances and simplifies normal human processes (ignoring/avoiding someone who irritates you, or in some way causes you anxiety). Your example of a legal system not bothering to prevent one crime because those criminals may commit a different type of crime altogether doesn't work. If I'd argued that you shouldn't try to stop bullying because bullies would turn to copyright theft, maybe you'd have the ghost of a point, but I have not been arguing in favour of bullying at all. An argument in favour of bullying would more accurately caricature your side in this debate, not mine. See all the comments relating to weakness, lack of resolve, victim blaming, etc.

It's not a crime, or a breach of the TOS, to avoid interaction with people who annoy or upset you, in fact it seems to be heavily implied that you should avoid conflict and confrontation (family friendly atmosphere, best behaviour, users are expected to conduct themselves in a manner which is respectful to themselves and fellow users at all times, etc). Bullying, however, is a breach of the TOS with or without technological enhancement. You don't need to remove a feature that honest people benefit from because it may happen to be used as a bullying tool. Every feature of a message board could be utilised to technologically enhance the way a bully operates. Every word in the English language could be used to enhance the way a bully operates.

Good.