Poll of the Day > Should we be able to block or ignore mods on this site?

(+) Yeah! (+)

should

Block is an obvious no, since they can't moderate your posts if they can't see them. I don't see why ignore shouldn't be possible, though, provided it doesn't interfere with your ability to see any dispute responses they send you.

Most don't even post much...

pionear posted...

Most don't even post much...

A few post a whole lot, many , on CE

This website still has mods?

I already find it pretty easy to ignore something I don't want to read.

[LFAQs-redacted-quote]

Those are things I want to read. And I don't complain about things I disagree with, I refute them.

[LFAQs-redacted-quote]


As much as they might claim that, I find it very hard to believe that they never take down obvious violations that they come across before anyone's had a chance to mark them.

[LFAQs-redacted-quote]

That's more in line with how other people respond to me. I make references to support my position. Others ignore the point I'm making and substitute it with the position they think I hold, keep telling me I'm wrong, to get off the internet, or to shut up. What they don't do is make an argument that would be compelling

[LFAQs-redacted-quote]

It's starting to seem like you actually want to read my posts to have something to complain about.

SKARDAVNELNATE posted...

I refute them.

You have never refuted anything on this forum.

[LFAQs-redacted-quote]


[LFAQs-redacted-quote]


[LFAQs-redacted-quote]

Sounded like you were complaining there.

[LFAQs-redacted-quote]

You're still paying attention to what I have to say. At the least that means that you want to. As I said originally it's not that difficult to just disregard something you don't want to read.

BlackScythe0 posted...

You have never refuted anything on this forum.

I can think of several examples where I have. One of them is when discussing laws and pointing to incidents that they're attempting to address. I frequently quote specific pasages from the article we're talking about and demonstrate my thought process in regard to it. Occasionally I have to refute what my own position is because that has become the subject of disagreement.

refute

verb
verb: refute; 3rd person present: refutes; past tense: refuted; past participle: refuted; gerund or present participle: refuting
prove (a statement or theory) to be wrong or false; disprove.

You say crazy stuff, you don't prove anything wrong.

BlackScythe0 posted...

You say crazy stuff, you don't prove anything wrong.

If I say my position is X and other person keeps insisting my position is Y how was that not proof of what position I hold?
If I quote passage X from a bill and say this is in response to news story Y how is that not evidence to support that a bill was meant to address a thing that is happening in the world?

You want a tampermonkey script?

Psythik posted...

This website still has mods?

Mainly in the politics board.

Fierce_Deity_08 posted...

Mainly in the politics board.

They got a far right wing mod recently modding people on potd.

[LFAQs-redacted-quote]

You're the one that turned this topic into being about me instead of the original subject.

[LFAQs-redacted-quote]

I don't know what that means in this context. All you had to do was not quote me and this whole exchange would have been avoided.

Please put some pants on

BlackScythe0 posted...

Please put some pants on

[LFAQs-redacted-quote]


See... This is what I meant by not compelling.

Ignore, perhaps, but not block. Theres no good reason to enable that feature.

Well, this topic went to absolutely shit quite quickly, didn't it?



adjl posted...

I don't see why ignore shouldn't be possible, though, provided it doesn't interfere with your ability to see any dispute responses they send you.

The assumption is probably that mods can issue verbal warnings or announce things in a topic and therefore you need to be able to see what they're saying in case it's important. But in practice they don't really do that.

Arguably it shouldn't matter - if mods are posting things that are so terrible or annoying that they need to be ignored for it, you should be marking all those posts or complaining about them on Hellhole in an attempt to get them de-modded. If enough people complain (or mark) they'll probably become more of a headache than they're worth.

ParanoidObsessive posted...

Arguably it shouldn't matter - if mods are posting things that are so terrible or annoying that they need to be ignored for it, you should be marking all those posts or complaining about them on Hellhole in an attempt to get them de-modded. If enough people complain (or mark) they'll probably become more of a headache than they're worth.

Pretty much that.

The way it was always explained was if you need to ignore/block a mod for a legitimate reason, then they shouldn't be a mod in the first place. If you want to ignore/block a mod for a trolling reason, then why would we let you do that?

ParanoidObsessive posted...

Arguably it shouldn't matter - if mods are posting things that are so terrible or annoying that they need to be ignored for it, you should be marking all those posts or complaining about them on Hellhole in an attempt to get them de-modded. If enough people complain (or mark) they'll probably become more of a headache than they're worth.

Arguably, but on the flip side, not wanting to see somebody's posts doesn't necessarily mean they're doing something moddable. If, say, I have a particular aversion to people using "literally" to mean "figuratively" to the point where I would prefer to ignore any users that make a habit of that, that's certainly not something that should warrant de-modding if a mod does it (and if I make a habit of marking it or complaining, I'm likely to end up losing my marking privileges or being modded for those complaints), but not being able to ignore them will impair my ability to enjoy the board. Where the whole point of ignoring users is to make the board more enjoyable, exempting some users from being ignored stands to undermine that.

ParanoidObsessive posted...

The assumption is probably that mods can issue verbal warnings or announce things in a topic and therefore you need to be able to see what they're saying in case it's important. But in practice they don't really do that.

Even then, it's easy enough to work around that. Let mods see an indicator for which users have them ignored, then give them some kind of override option for that ignore that allows them to push a post through to the user if needed (with the caveat, of course, that abusing that for harassment purposes would result in de-modding). Alternatively, just make it so ignoring doesn't block mod PM's and use PM's to accomplish that.

adjl posted...

If, say, I have a particular aversion to people using "literally" to mean "figuratively" to the point where I would prefer to ignore any users that make a habit of that

Ironically, if you DID have that aversion, then you wouldn't be replying to my post right now, because I do that all the time!

Mainly because I believe in the concept of linguistic drift and evolution of language by usage, which means that if enough people "misuse" a word for long enough, the connotation changes and the usage becomes valid (and new dictionaries will start including the new connotation as an official definition).

The boat on "literally" has long since sailed (Ambrose Bierce was pointing out people used it that way 150 years ago, and modern dictionaries actually include the alternate definition of "literally" used for emphasis), and at this point the people complaining about it are actually the ones in the wrong.



adjl posted...

Where the whole point of ignoring users is to make the board more enjoyable, exempting some users from being ignored stands to undermine that.

Yeah, but then you're pushing up on the fact that you don't actually have any sort of inalienable and innate human right to digitally ignore anyone you want, and online services aren't obligated to provide you with the ability to ignore other users at all.

So if a site decides to allow you to ignore users, that's as valid as as letting you ignore everyone or no one. It's just how that site chooses to administrate.

If a site decides to give you the ability to ignore (or block, or whatever), but still mandates that admin and moderation-level staff cannot be ignored for official reasons, they're fully entitled to do that. Even if they have the technological capacity to create multi-layered announcements or ways of administering things, they are in no way obligated to do so.

And to be brutally honest, if you're so bothered by people saying or doing things that are literally too minor to be modded or to get mods in trouble, you might be too thin-skinned to be on the Internet anyway.



adjl posted...

Even then, it's easy enough to work around that.

Let's be honest, though. This site is coded by monkeys. Even when they introduce the simplest of features they wind up breaking three other things, and almost everything they do is wrong.

If they tried to do something that allowed mods to bypass ignore only under special circumstances, they'd probably break both the ignore feature and the moderation queue entirely.

ParanoidObsessive posted...

Ironically, if you DID have that aversion, then you wouldn't be replying to my post right now, because I do that all the time!

Literally.

ParanoidObsessive posted...

Mainly because I believe in the concept of linguistic drift and evolution of language by usage, which means that if enough people "misuse" a word for long enough, the connotation changes and the usage becomes valid (and new dictionaries will start including the new connotation as an official definition).

The boat on "literally" has long since sailed (Ambrose Bierce was pointing out people used it that way 150 years ago, and modern dictionaries actually include the alternate definition of "literally" used for emphasis), and at this point the people complaining about it are actually the ones in the wrong.

I don't disagree, but I do appreciate the absurdity of having a second word become its own antonym (the first being "cleave," though the "cling to" definition of that word has almost completely left the vernacular), and I personally try to avoid using it as such for precision's sake. I do, however, enjoy saying that "literally" literally doesn't literally mean literally anymore, entirely because I am a silly goose.

ParanoidObsessive posted...

Yeah, but then you're pushing up on the fact that you don't actually have any sort of inalienable and innate human right to digitally ignore anyone you want, and online services aren't obligated to provide you with the ability to ignore other users at all.

Well, no, but it's never been a question of upholding rights. It's a question of providing a service people like using enough to use it, and if tweaking how the service is provided will make it more enjoyable for some while taking nothing away from others, suggesting that tweak is a no-brainer.

ParanoidObsessive posted...

And to be brutally honest, if you're so bothered by people saying or doing things that are literally too minor to be modded or to get mods in trouble, you might be too thin-skinned to be on the Internet anyway.

I mean, I tend to think that about the majority of people that use the ignore feature in the first place (at least the ones who announce that they're using it, which I recognize are a vocal minority that wants attention for using it and not necessarily representative of all users of the feature), but I recognize that some people find it improves their experience. I just don't think there's much need to exempt mods from it, outside of the rare exception of needing to specifically warn somebody that they're skating on thin ice (though even then, if they aren't able to see that warning because they chose to ignore it and end up getting modded as a result, that's 100% on them).

ParanoidObsessive posted...

Let's be honest, though. This site is coded by monkeys. Even when they introduce the simplest of features they wind up breaking three other things, and almost everything they do is wrong.

If they tried to do something that allowed mods to bypass ignore only under special circumstances, they'd probably break both the ignore feature and the moderation queue entirely.

This is very true.

Ignore only.

why