Forums » Suggestions & Development Discussion » blocking

i've noticed that blocking is a rather lowkey way of simple avoidance lately. i was wondering if there could be/was an option to just. not see the person that you blocked at all? i understand that it might be more complicated than anyone's willing to take on, just wondering. the main reason i block people is because i just don't like them or seeing what they say, and i don't want to interact with them. it'd be nice to just not have to see them around the site or what they say, since seeing them around the site or talking to them is usually what makes me block them in the first place.

and yeah, ik some people won't want to block people all the way - that's why i said option. i also understand it might be complicated, so this is basically a sort of hypothetical question - also since i know that the rpr has a lot of suggestions coming in monthly and a rather small coding staff. it's just been bothering me for a while and it'd be a useful thing - at least, for me, hah - and didn't want to not say something on the off chance that the suggestion was picked up.

This is one of those things that's been floating to the top of my consciousness a lot more lately.

Historically I've resisted doing this because it can lead to some weird situations where people seem to be talking to themselves, or where you barge into a topic and start repeating the same points as someone you've blocked, along with some more complicated moderator issues still. I've been investigating happy mediums.

On the terms of this topic - what about when you block someone... You stop seeing them on your dashboard? Cause I'll be honest, I have someone on my blocklist right now who's been friending my friends, and not only do I despise the ableist elements of their icon, I hate having to see their name and icon every day. It'd be nice not to have to see this on what is 'my' 'private' space, if that makes sense.

I echo this, there is a player on here who I have a mutual block in place with (I have her blocked and she has me blocked) as petty as this may sound I don't want to see her name at all in my personal feed. The issue between us was never resolved and its hard to move past when their name is in your personal feed.

I have recently blocked someone and they make my eyes roll to space, I wish to never ever see them again. It was the first time I had blocked anyone so it wasn’t ever something I thought about. Now that I have done so, I want them out of sight forever! It would be nice if I could block a person and I wouldn’t ever have to see a single post of theirs.

I rarely block a person unless they give me some crap, cause drama or are bothersome little fools.

However, would blocking a user also block out their characters as well? I seen some nasty acts before on other places where a user would use an alt or other accounts to harass the person that blocked them.

Yes, blocking someone blocks all of their characters as well, even if those characters are anonymous and you don't know about them.

Similarly, blocking an anonymous character will block the player of that character and all of their other characters, even if you have no idea who plays the original anon character.

Thank you. Since I feel some people may skirt around that to advocate more drama.

It is my opinion that I would rather those confusing moments happen than to be without a means to mute somebody entirely.

The type of people I would want to block are not people I want to see or hear from at all. I can accept them seeing my posts but I don't even want to have to think of them.

Of course there will be awkward moments, maybe I realize they're in the thread because of something somebody else writes. But if you ask me that is the price to pay for personal moderation.

Perhaps it could be an option you can select that is opt-in instead of opt-out, kind of an extra layer of "are you sure" that defaults to the current model?

Are you two talking about seeing them in your notification feed? This should already be the case. If they're still in there, and it's old things from before they were blocked, I would recommend clearing the notifications cache. If it still persists, please submit a bug report with details.

Recent things for me, but I'll try that Kim

Not sure if this has been considered, but maybe we could implement something similar to Discord for stuff on the forums? Essentially, Discord hides the comment and says that it's from a blocked person, giving you the choice to see what has been said or to simply ignore it. Hopefully I explained that properly aha.

like the blacklisting thing on xkit via tumblr? - the program collapses posts that contain text with a keyword that you've specified. the collapse thing has a button with an option to show, and also says why it was collapsed.

Unfortunately I have been there done that with that particular feature. The instinct to click it is too great, and arguing "Then don't do that" is kind of dismissive of the fact that folks like me do that in spite of the instant punishment they get every time they make the mistake of doing it. Or in other words, easier said than done.

I really think there needs to be a very concrete "I don't want to see this person anywhere anymore" button.

I do understand this feeling, but if this does end up being considered as a suitable happy medium I can say for myself it would bring immediate relief. Yes, I'd still know someone that I blocked was present, but viewing the person and their messages at least then becomes my own decision. At least for me, the ability to make someone's posts into faint background noise would be a huge improvement on nothing, as I hit that block button because I already had zero interest in what they have to say.

Also, currently I'm resorting to uBlock to prevent myself from seeing certain people's display pics and names, but I'd like to support RPR by keeping it off.

Well, the thing is that it isn't a faint background noise. For me, it's a big blaring bar that says "Hey! Guess what? This person you really don't like is posting!" And despite my greater judgement, I still click it, and feel the frustration of encountering the same attitudes that convinced me to block in the first place, and still I do it again and again and again.

This is how Discord handled it when somebody was actively harassing me with transphobia in one of the servers I frequented. It's the opposite of a solution, and it actually made the problem worse for me.

I don't see that keeping the continuity of a thread is more important than having the ability to remove them from my sight. Actually, I consider it wildly inferior a concern.

Since there's currently no convenient way isolate a particular user's posts using CSS selection, I don't have the option to do it myself, so a happy medium is, in my opinion, an ineffective half-measure. I feel so passionately about this because I've been through this many times in the past. It's very important to me that a block be a block. A complete, global block to prevent me from being forced to share the space I choose to relax in with people who are cruel or crude in a way I can't cope with.

I'd prefer for that possibility too. In the meantime, while a smoother alternative is figured out, a half-measure from my perspective is still a good measure. I support whatever is feasible now, and collapsed posts (into a tiny textless bar? I'd rather not have any context to it) sounds like it could be. Kim also mentioned that a total block could cause issues with modding, so I'm not sure how simple that will be to iron out.

I would rather have something which sounds like it could be implemented now to soften the wait. This could be an extra option toggled when blocking someone so those who it would not benefit don't have to make use of it. Just being able to minimize a blocked person's presence would be some comfort in my eyes.

Here's another thing. In order for a total block to cover all bases, there'll need to be some way to filter other people's posts for mentions of the blocked person or quotes from blocked posts. If I'm overlooking here something feel free to hop in. I'm really not trying to shut down those who would like a total block, I'm just not sure how it can be made as foolproof as people would like.

- If someone blocked me for example, and I popped into a thread, and someone said "Hi rat!", the solution could be to scratch out mention of my username, but...
- In the case of my username, it's also a noun, so then someone saying "I like rats." may appear to say "I like []s."
- If someone quotes a blocked person's message but only partially/without using the quote BBcode, could the server recognize that excerpt as something the blocked person said and hide that too?

Also, if the blocked person's anon characters were also affected in any way other than preventing deliberate contact, that could then compromise their privacy. I figure this is the point that might cause the most issues.

I wouldnt expect anything like that to be implemeneted, it just leads to Scunthorpe paradoxes. I just think that block means block, not prevent from PMing. Block means I dont have to read their posts, that Im not going to be exposed to the kind of behavior that inspired me to block them in the first place.

Eliminating them from my perception entirely is of course impractical, but what Im asking for is pretty standard behavior of any forum Ive ever been on. Just make their posts not show up for me. Thats all I need to feel better.

I'm just a passive observer in this conversation, but as a humorous aside: unsurprisingly, mentioning the Scunthorpe problem made Server cause a Scunthorpe problem by flagging your post as requiring mod attention