a2k sucks

Yes, 'likes' work on FB. The dynamics that exist on a social media site like FB are cut from a wholly different sort of cloth. FB and social media sites serve a different sort of activity and community and never the twain shall meet. I see the value there of 'likes'; however, in here, not so much.

YMMV (your mileage may vary)

The tag problem is going away, simply put nobody will be able to tag other people's posts anymore and they will no longer be relied on to organize topics the way they currently are.

Good to see you too Frank, next time I'm in NYC let's get a drink.

On thing that has been brought up over the years and needs to be considered is listing on the members home page how many people are ignoring that member. I dont know how I feel about this, but it would serve as a way for people to quickly get some kind of clue who here are the members in good standing, and it would take no hamster time. It has also been suggested that who has them on ignore be listed.

It's going to become more powerful, it will be a "block" feature and will not only ignore the user but prevent them from being able to see and respond to your posts.

Interesting idea.

That's one thing I think we have gotten wrong here so far. In that to be a single inclusive community the rules are too inclusive for some. The way we are going to solve this is to finish our plans (groups were never finished) to turn this into a platform for communities instead of a single monolithic community.

So basically able2know is going to be one community in a community of communities and moderators are going to be empowered to run their communities how they see fit, allowing them to set the tone and for each user to be able to choose the moderation style they prefer by voting with their feet between the communities.

bed idea. If someone is badmouthing me or my ideas I have a right to see it. The way you plan to rig it you are going to see people putting others on ignore and blasting away, depriving the one being attacked of any recourse. You should not be a participant in injustice.

We haven't had much time for it in the last 7 years. Mods deserve a lot of the credit and in the new platform mods will be emphasized more, with them essentially owning their communities and being able to run them how they like. Because users will be able to create their own alternate community for any subject and move over easily we are going to do a lot more to enable the community managers.

they will become dictators, they always do.

This is a problem with a single monolithic community but if this is a community of communities where the users can switch with a few clicks this is less of a problem, the users police the censors, and instead of there having to be a single correct amount of censorship for all each can choose the type they like and there can exist different communities that are moderated differently.

Right now, the right tone has to be struck for the whole community and invariably most people think it is not just right and could censor more or censor less.

You really should learn from past mistakes and shut up for a spell, at least pretend that you are interested in the wisdom of the crowd, pretend like the opinions of your content providers matters to you.

I don't like the new block feathre at all.

1) It enforces the cliques and shuts down dissenting views.

2) Will add to phantom weirdness. Let's say Bob has Carol blocked. Alice starts a thread. Carol responds to Alice. David responds to Carol. Bob responds to David, Alice responds to Bob, now there are several different paths through this discussion that different members will see... and Carol will even get to see and respond to what Bob wrote through David.

3) The advantage that a publicly accessible forum site, like Able2Know, has over a private page based site is that anyone can respond on any topic. This makes Able2Know more like facebook.

This feature would make it less likely you will have any interaction with people you don't agree with. You can only discuss with people who agree with you. Maybe this would increase the amount of civility.

I don't think this is a good idea.

Ok, I get it.

But, can we have open communities for those of us who want a place for civil discussion among people with diverse opinions? In such an open community I would want blocking disabled for any thread in the community. I would want a way to police personal attacks.

Would such rules be possible for a single community?

I expect it to, with multiple communities people will be able to make enclaves with the tones they desire. So I expect there to be communities that tolerate more incivility and communities that tolerate less. No longer will a single moderating team set the tone for the whole community.

Then their communities will not thrive in the community of communities. When people don't like the moderation in one community they will be able to go to others they like more easily (vs here where you have to find an entirely new site and register, it will be a couple clicks on the new platform).

Perhaps. Perhaps you might consider learning from yours, where you instinctively cry sky is falling and how you just-can't-possibly-be-expected-to-talk-here-anymore each time then concede later your fears were unfounded while you continue to use the site unimpeded.

That is to be expected, not everyone will like it. Especially in abstract theory. I have a lot of the same qualms. But I don't think it will have the effect you mention and if it does it will be something reconsidered.

Ultimately though, if one person doesn't' want to talk to the other, but the other can follow them around and harass them it is not a very good community and has it's own very significant downsides.

Most decisions like this come with tradeoffs. Yes, if people can block others it will mean they can choose to have a more insular experience that questions their views less, but it also means they can avoid harassment and abuse more easily.

In my study of this kind of feature's effect on a community I do not see the outcome you envision, but if there are historic cases of this I'd love to have a look at them.

Edit: a better way to answer this is to say that your concerns are valid more on the individual level than the community level. If you go around blocking people it will mean you have a more restrictive experience, a little bubble so to speak. But it doesn't mean anyone else has that experience. It doesn't really change the whole community's experience the same way, one person can't block someone for everyone. In fact the increased ability to shape their own experience means there is less need for that kind of thing (typically a community ban for all people).

..and speaking of "nattering nabobs of negativism."

We are going to let each community set as much of the settings as possible, I'm not sure if the blocking feature will be one of them but in terms of how posts are sorted, etc as much as possible we will leave this up to the communities (for e.g. one of the ideas I have considered was allowing the communities to decide if they want to use the votes and how, including allowing communities to elect the upvote only model etc).