Why doesn't A2K have an ignore button?

I think it would be rather difficult to follow a discussion if half of the
people's post were shielded off.

One has to be disciplined enough to not read certain people or just
bite your tongue at times, which is quite hard all the time (I admit).

Good point Jane. But isn't the fact that people skip over certain posts pretty much the same as if it were being shielded?

Though I'm actually not being serious about this. I was just trying to make a joke.

There will be robust "ignore post" and "ignore user" functionality on the new verson of the site (the "ignore user" part is already half coded).

I know you're joking, Teya

Well, yes and no. You try to skip their messages but nonetheless read
them or fly over it, to at least get the jist of the discussion flow. The
key is not to respond to their posts (which is really the hardest).

Wow. I didn't realize you could actually do that. That's pretty neat. heh... Will the person being ignored know that they are being ignored? Whew... that could actually cause some more drama. I can see it now...

Thread title:

Am I Being Ignored?

Contents:

"OH MY GOD. I'M BEING IGNORED. THIS IS SO WRONG. THIS SITE SUCKS. NOBODY LOVES ME. EVERYBODY HATES ME. I THINK I'LL EAT WORMS AND DIE!!

Of course none of you will know I'm doing that because YOU ARE ALL IGNORING ME!!

WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH! "

And of course most of us won't because they will have been iggyfied. Hmmm... I guess the mods can't do that though.

I know what you mean Jane. I pretty much do the same, and struggle with biting my tongue sometimes as well. That's why I don't even go into some threads. (Nor do I blame anyone for not coming into mine) Some people just seem to wander in the same circles over and over. Once you've been around their circle once you've pretty much got the gist of it.

Though I may occasionally take a quick look once in a while to see if they've made any changes to how they are doing things. That does happen occasionally.

Very cool, Craven. Will that mean their PM's won't be allowed to be delivered, too? If so, won't that indicate they are being ignored by the person they sent it to?

I dunno. There are a number of posts that I will pass by. The writer of the post has no idea that I have ignored him/her. Now if there were some way of the ignored poster being informed that people are ignoring him/her, that would be a way for that person to learn a lesson! :wink:

Can you imagine a member getting a notice:

You and/or your posts have been officially ignored by 3,837 members!

True, and what a lesson that would be too! However, does that leave any room at all for the person to change? Also how will anyone know if they really have changed if everyone is ignoring them?

Perhaps those are dumb questions though. Labels are a hard thing to break out of. Maybe even impossible in some cases.

Treya- Seriously though, there have only been a few people over the years that I purposely ignore. There are some threads that I find uninteresting, or some things to which I cannot relate, and I will pass them by.

It is true though, that people do change, and it is a good idea to check in on their posts once in awhile.

Disclaimer: These specs are in motion, merely typing them out makes me think of them and weigh changes to them.

Ignoring will be able to be set for messages, forum posts and other eventual site features.

Ignoring a post itself will collapse it from view and increment the ignore counter. There will be a counter-ignore counter (call it "applause" for now).

Depending on some kind of algorithm the ignores will be tallied and if enough people ignore a post it will be ignored for others as well (there may be a possibility of users being able to select different sensitivity thresholds for this).

In essence it will be handing moderating most stuff (other than illegal stuff) like flames and retarted people back to the community. See, we can make all sorts of objective rules but there's no rule we can make to preclude retarded posts. So despite the deficiencies of mob rule there will be a bit of it used in a balance I'm still trying to strike within the software featureset.

The goal is to put the users in control of the community, and then give the users more ability to control what control the users (i.e. the mob) has over an individual user's experience.

Combining this with the ability for users to open their own groups and forums on the site and run them as they see fit I hope to strike a balance that will allow the site to scale.

There will be some natural groupings of like-minded users but hopefully in a way that allows some underrepresented subsets to flourish.

I see it as moving into a bigger house with more rooms. We're still trying to gather people into a vibrant community but allowing more individualization and segmentation (i.e. rooms) so that topics and individuals out of the site mainstream can flourish (e.g. tech questions have as much a chance to get a slappy joke for an answer as a real question, I want to make a site where both types of interaction can thrive with the right types of separations and content control).

The key to me is finding a way to give the user's the site without it going to the lowest common denominator. I have lots of increasingly complex ideas on how to do that and I've been working on it for over a year now (and will do so for the rest of my life as far as I can tell).

No, that means I am doing something right!

Naaa... I understand phoenix. There really are some people who unintentionally... or maybe even intentionally scream "PLEASE IGNORE ME". No joke! Though they are few and far between.

Craven... I'm not sure I entirely got all the technical mumbo jumbo you said, however... what I did understand sounds absolutely brilliant, and some of it made me laugh pretty darn hard!

To put it in laymen's terms... it sounds to me like you are developing a retarded post filter.

LOL

Yup. And since there's no way a select group of people can do that fairly I need to employ folksonomy (mob rule) to some degree.

For example, I personally think "me too" and "bookmark" (though there is a legitimate use case for this that will be solved by another site feature) are clutter. I can't make a fair rule about it but can turn it over to the community with semi-democracy.

For example, not all votes will be equal due to the fact that the registration will be open enough not to fully prevent sock puppetry (making multiple accounts) and more weight will be given to admin/mod votes and possibly trusted users (especially if I can figure out a "trust" algorithm so it can scale) and thread starters (i.e. someone who starts a thread should get a little extra say in whether something is off-topic).

It's an incredibly complex mix, and I'm even thinking of political structures like elections and such but I'm determined to nail it over time.

I want a retard filter that still gives retards their place. I'm also trying to shape the use of the community for it's collective benefit in many other ways.

For example, the "all in one" content view fosters hegemony and content will start to be discovered through social relationships (think myspace meets a real forum) and verticals (deeper more meaningful categories, topic types, tags).

What I'm shooting for is not a hack of a forum software, it's a mashup of ideas (original and variations on older ones) that does not exist on the internet right now.

It's goan be wicked awesome (if I ever effin' finish it). Or it will be a retard filter, same difference!

Well that's pretty awesome, forging ahead on a new path in forumdom. I'm excited about the coming changes because from the sounds of it if anyone can make it work, you can. This site is already pretty amazing as is. So cheers to the coming new and improved A2K with the hope that it won't take you the rest of your life to work it all out!

I hope it takes the rest of my life, but I also hope I release a version before then....

Heh... I think we all hope you do too!

Fer sure.

A room for the retards?

I'm hoping that's not in the basement of the new house. I don't like dark, dank places.

Me either squinney. Don't worry... I'm sure Craven will put a light in there for us!