Tim, that doesn't really help. That effectively says that any forum that isn't forum based is an irrelevance and when have you ever come across a forum with a base topic that doesn't allow "off topic" conversation?


However, avoiding a contentious thread is an option that some may take.


Sith- I was equating the real life option to the boards right now. On the boards you can scroll past i.e. actively ignore the statement/problem/challenge or put it on ignore and never have your own perspectives challenged. I, personally don't think ignore is a good way to go. I'll not go as so far as to call it "weak" as others may have done but to me it feels like a complete disassociation to anything that challenges your own personal beliefs and as such the ignore function means that you can go to a "safe" place.

The world isn't "safe". IMO to develop it is best to face those who challenge and test you as it helps develop you as in individual. IF you feel you are being bullied then you have 100% of my support in getting help and having that bully dealt with BUT a differing of opinion is not bullying, a forceful point of disagreement is not bullying. It may be badly articulated but it does not warrant retreating to a safe place.
Granted these forums are meant to be fun, but they should always challenge too. A recent post I did on facebook would have been edited and shut down here ASAP but when I did it I was rightly called out as a result of the misguided "haha that will be funny" thought I had. This thought ignored my audience and the context of the post, it went for the cheap "laugh". The posters here make me rethink things and have done for year, there are many conservatives who I would have put on ignore when I was younger just to avoid dealing with their "poisonous bile". If these had been on ignore I would have missed out on a huge broadening of my still weak understanding of the world. If they had been on ignore I would have missed out on a learning curve that has actually helped.

Being opposed to differing views even when delivered in a difficult and challenging style is beneficial overall.

Bullying needs to be closed down asap. As is frequently stated here, you debate the post and the idea not the poster.

We don't all align to this as well as we could do but we should all be open to be challenged.


The minute someone is put on ignore the chance for this type of discussion is lost.

You can't just ignore someone when in the real world and it's something that we never had an issue with back in "the good old days" and whilst I don't want to sound like and old fossil due to progress etc... I don't see why you should be able to just ignore someone here. We're meant to be a community. This to me means you take to bad with the good and overtime you learn how to deal with each other better. Using ignore just creates walls, these walls prevent discourse and prevent that all so important common ground from being found.



Ignoring a problem is never a good solution.

 

The forum should not always be challenging. Argument from nostalgia is not convincing, either. In the good old days boorish loudmouthery was more acceptable, bullies were more tolerated, minority opinion less respected, etc.

People can and do ignore you in real life. Not everyone values your opinion, or wants to hear it. If there's a problem individual in real life who frequents a certain establishment, or works in a certain area, the people who can't stand him/her just limit their interaction as much as possible. Avoid that pub/cafe/club, walk the long way round work to avoid that room or cubicle, etc. Technology just makes it easier to avoid misery in an place we come to relax online (which is actually an honest to goodness part of real life too).

But if the person is being an ass, that's what you're there to moderate. The minute details of rhetoric are secondary to the concern of the person being an ass.

I'm pretty sure everyone agrees that 'welcome to my ignore list' style comments are a no-no. If you decide 'Ignore me if you like' style comments are a no-no too, fine. But none of this is actually putting the innocent ignore function under a bad light IMO. It's not an abuse of the actual function that you're concerned with here, is it?

 

But bullying, according to those victims who have spoken up on this issue, does exist on the Boards.

And Mods have admitted that if the TOS is not violated, they can do nothing about the bullying.

The Ignore function has been cited as a solution to those who fall between the gaps of what the moderators can deal with.

 

Yesterday, there was a user who was being rude and disrespectful, and when he was called on it by several people, his response was, "If you don't like it, you can always put me on ignore." This is an abuse of the feature. Like I said several pages ago, this forum has been around since 1998 with no ignore feature, and everybody survived it. I think it's an unnecessary feature... we have moderators to deal with problem users.

 

That's not an excuse for keeping around a (mis)feature that causes all kinds of other problems. That's a reason to update the TOS to close the loophole that permits those forms of bullying. No one should be able to bully someone else without violating the TOS. Stick and anti-bullying clause in the TOS, get rid of this misfeature, and we should be good.

 

That's what mods are for, though.

 

Once more. For the cheap seats. That is not what, our mods at least, are for.

Ours exist to enforce the TOS.

 

Then they're failures as mods, Sith. Simple as that.

When I was in MS, any promotion required an assessment by the existing Mods about how appropriate the candidates could be for the role and in part that was based on how well integrated to their forum they are. Were they active participants? Did others respect their opinion? etc.

Mods are indirectly responsible for the prevalence of bullying behaviour in their forum as they are responsible for the overall tone for the forum.

If they do not agree, or disengage from this, an argument about their effectiveness needs to be made.

 

I don't even see it as an abuse of the feature, actually. Discussion of the feature, even in a confrontational context, is not utilising the feature at all. I might be being a bit pedantic, but when the person being an ass is the problem, the words they use to be an ass can be incidental. Someone could launch a barrage of insults that didn't attack the person or use banned words and still expect to be moderated or banned for being an ass.

If someone genuinely abuses the feature itself for malicious purposes, permaban them because the only ways I can think of doing that are exceptionally mean and dishonest, and potentially very damaging. But just whining about it or suggesting it as an alternative to either party GTFOing doesn't seem worthy of being an offence in its own right, imho. Banning all discussion seems like an odd compromise and gives it an enigmatic allure, specifying ways it can and can't be discussed seems to grant it special powers too. It's just a word in a box.

Anyway, I'm happy to agree that saying the words 'ignore me' can be immoderate. I'm not sure why you'd need a list of phrases to identify a bad confrontation, however....

 

Regarding the whole bullying and moderation thing, I'll say that it can be tough to discern a line between what constitutes "friendly ribbing" and what constitutes actual bullying. When we notice a problem it tends to get airtime amongst the staff; but when it's, say, submitted in report form it's isolated, viewable by all MS with no context, and frequently can look a bit benign. If you feel the need to use ignore for that kind of situation, do so, but it wouldn't hurt to contact a relevant staff member and at least explain why you feel that user's actions are detrimental to your experience on the boards. The staff member might reach a different conclusion than you did, but I think regardless of whether or not the feature stays (And I've never leaned particularly hard one way or the other on that question), the actual contact can't really hurt.

As regards hostile discussion of the ignore feature, I've never considered it especially polite but my position on whether or not it needs to be more specifically regulated remains in flux.

I realize that all looks kind of noncommittal but, uh, I've never actually even been able to use the ignore feature as I was pre-move staff. I'm taking user opinions into consideration to try and cover that deficiency.

 

Or you could just talk to the alleged bully and highlight where the grievance comes from and ask them to be mindful of their behaviour. If their response is an indignant "OH. OH OF COURSE. PICK ON ME. OH. OH. I'M THE BULLY? OH SO RICH" - you know, the kind of over the top faux indignation that makes you want to punch someone until your hand is broken? Yeah that. Anyway if their response is this, then you basically take it as given that they've been warned and if they persist it's the natural consequence of you giving them precisely enough rope to fashion a noose and tie it to a rafter.

If, however, they weren't aware how they came across they express gratitude at your intervention and moderate their behaviour. Either way, it's a whole lot more effective than the patented TwilekJedi method of yawning before listlessly plucking at your fiddle while a forum burns.

 

I like the ignore function. It's given me the opportunity to avoid individuals whom I personally find extremely aggravating and would rather not interact with, even if their behavior is with the TOS. I'm here for escapism and enjoyment. I'm not here for someone who's decided they have a weird beef with me to go around and quote me and argue with me constantly just because they feel like it. I had someone do that a few weeks ago, quoting something I said out of context to several threads I was not involved with just to stir up anger because I had an opinion they didn't like. Now that I have them on ignore, they don't see my opinions and I don't have to deal with them, and the mods don't have to deal with a stupid conflict between users because one of them has a Killik up their butt.

 

You're not talking about me are you?

 

I think you misunderstood the ignore function.

 

Or they do but they can't interact with me. Whatever. Mod told me to do it, so I did. I don't care.

 

I didn't intend to stir up anger - but simply to get the issue (Controversial portrayals in Ylesia) - discussed - my apologies for offending.

 

One possible problem that could come up with the ignore function is with roleplaying. Say you had gotten in an argument with another roleplayer on some other thread. You ignore them. However it would make roleplaying really hard because people who be writing responses to what you saw as non-existent posts.

 

Ignoring someone affects only the ignorer. It has no effect on the ignoree, who can still see your posts, quote you, etc. exactly the way they did before.

 

So ****ing what?

 

What if the DM wants to separate the party, and so has each group ignore the other group?

 

That's why there's an option to "Show Ignored Content".