I want to make a statement to pretty much everyone in this thread.

First off, mreiland, there were a group of us that had a real case for getting rid of muting that wasn't based on content. Now, it's completely muddled because you are arguing and provoking people about it.

Everyone for muting: you are generally using ad hominem attacks against mreiland as your basis for supporting muting. I can understand why, he's not really productively discussing this subject. The only other argument I hear is that you are using it properly, so it is a valid feature. I'll address this issue at the end of this post.

Everyone against muting: it's over. Muting is going to remain. We lost.

I will make my final case against muting here, and I am completely dropping it from this point onward. I refuse to respond to any comments made on this particular comment as well. I am firmly at the belief that whatever we say is useless, it will not change, and muting is going to remain, but I want to sum up my final point because I believe that I have the right to speak my mind.

I personally live by a philosophy of you can do whatever you want as long as you do not adversely impact me, and I should be able to do whatever I want as long as I do not adversely impact you.

When someone posts crap onto a post of mine on hubski, this can be considered an adverse impact on me directly. So, my action is to 'ignore' you, and you are no longer a problem to me.

When someone posts crap onto a post of yours on hubski and you decide to mute them, you are impacting me, the third party observer, from hearing what he has to say. Yes, you are impacting the user you are directly trying to impact, but you are also impacting me.

When you make a post on hubski, it is a public post. People keep comparing posts and muting and "not inviting" people to the party, but honestly, everyone is invited. I don't even have to be logged in to see the discussion, and anyone can sign up to join your discussion whether you like it or not. This is not a private gathering of people, we are not in your house, we are on a public website. If you want a private place to talk, then really that is not the design of hubski, I'm sorry. It may have seemed like a private respite for yourself, but due to the design it is not and never was. It was a public park that nobody knew about except a close group of friends. Now, a bunch of douchebag kids have shown up and won't go away.

The ignore and filter features do make them go away, though. They literally vanish from the park as far as far you are concerned. So why go and say that I, someone who may actually want to talk to those kids AND you about the same subject cannot speak to those kids on this topic?

I think people are rejecting social networking to an extreme here. I reject social networking because I find the concept to be dumb in relation to the internet. That doesn't mean that social networks cease to exist just because I no longer have a Facebook account. Social networking, though, is a real thing whether or not you like it or not. It's a way of describing human interaction conceptually.

If we use the solution of "go to another post to talk about that", we will fragment discussion and divide the community. By separating out content into user based discussions, we essentially form the things I hate most. Groups. Groups create hatred and conflict, not resolve them. Think about it, we create nations, what do we get? War. We create political parties, what do we get? Arguments and baseless attacks. We create corporations and what do we get? Patent fights. We create sports teams: arguments and fighting..... it just goes on.

So back to why you, the responsible mute user, want to keep your mute feature. This is probably very related to the second amendment and gun rights, for which I am in favor of. You have a gun (mute), and you use it responsibly, so why blame the gun when the problem is with the serial killers?

A responsible gun owner does not fire his weapon at people unless they are actively threatening their life. What is life in regards to this site? Your account and your ability to post. This is something that fundamentally is impossible for another person to remove from you on this site. It's just not possible.

So let's go back to the park. For the sake of proper analogy, it's actually a cluster of parks, each one about a specific topic (a post). The douchebag kids are there, do you ban them from one of the parks? Do you have the right to? No, it is a public park. But in this futuristic society, you have a tool even better than banning them from a park, you can make them cease to exist in your reality (ignore and filter).

I have made comments trying to solve this issue, but nobody really seems to care, so I think I'm just done trying to make peace. I gave peace a chance, though, I'll say that. It just seems like everyone here wants to fight even though they are the champions of a peaceful community of times past. The problem with becoming the champion of anything is that you essentially gain power in your own mind. This power then corrupts you into thinking that all your new ideas and wants are for that noble cause that you once fought for, even if those new ideas are directly opposed to it.

I guess why I'm fighting this is that I've been jumping from site to site for decades now because the communities keep changing. I'm sick of it. Hubski has the potential to be the final resting ground for all discourse if done properly, but if things aren't going to be done properly even here, I think I'm done with discourse on the internet as a whole. The fact that we have such a great starting point for something that can be greater than all of us is intriguing to me, and this is my last attempt to make this happen. Maybe you guys just see this as a community, but I see something in the design that maybe you don't. This will not be your garden of eden forever, so take precautions to preserve it without compromising your morals.

My final point is, the mere existence and attitudes towards this feature make me, the new user, feel unwelcome here. If that is what is supposed to happen, then I will go. You are trying to keep trolls and people like mreiland out, but I can assure you he will remain as will anyone else you choose to mute. I am the one considering leaving, not him. You guys have too rigid a community here and it makes me uncomfortable how much you don't want new users. The trolls will keep coming, but you are going to repel people like me. I guess that's probably a goal for most of you, so whatever. I will say that my reasoning has nothing to do with mreiland but it has to do with you guys, the established users.

Is this post even on topic anymore? I doubt it. I don't really care. It's the middle of the night (morning I mean, shit...). What was my point? I forgot. Whatever. I don't think any of this rant makes any sense I apologize. I haven't slept very well recently and I'm running on fumes.

Oh right, good riddance. I forgot. The end of my discussion on the topic.