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comment by speeding_snail
speeding_snail  ·  4582 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Little Kingdoms
As thenewgreen also mentioned, it sneaks the downvote into hubski. This in itself is contra the philosopy of Hubski if I'm not mistaken. However, I think blocking a user from commenting on your post is a step too far. Downvotes make it more unlikely that other people read the comment, but not impossible. Blocking a user to comment in the first place or removing the comment at a later date, makes it impossible for said user to participate in a discussion.

Another way of maintaining order is by making ignoring a 2-way street. What I mean is this: If user 1 ignores user 2, then user 2 also stops recieving posts from user 1. This way you sort of take away the users right to read your posts (at least directly) and makes Hubski less functional as a punishment for being ignored. User 2 is then less likely to get into the discussion, because it takes a lot more effort to find the post.

I don't know if this is a good idea, since it still has some problems. But it is what people do. They don't start to talk to people they don't want a discussion with in the first place, unless the other person talks to them. Anyway, my two cents.





mk  ·  4582 days ago  ·  link  ·  
Hm. I think the problem with making ignoring a two-way street is that it would have to force unfollowing, (if the user followed you) which IMO is a bit combative.

If we were to enable blocking of specific users from commenting on your posts, I think we would also need to make the list of users that you block public. Also, I think the block would only function on your own posts, and not on replies to your comments on other’s posts.

The question IMHO, is whether what is gained from this is worth what is lost. Trolling will be greatly diminished, which would be a boon; however, I wonder if people will avoid users that ban too liberally, which would be an important counter to abusive blocking. I like that the system puts power in the hands of hubskiers, but I wonder to what extent the community would allow it to be abused.

Importantly, I don’t think a poster should be able to delete another’s comments. The most they could do is prevent future ones.

thenewgreen  ·  4582 days ago  ·  link  ·  
Right now, if you "ignore" someone, do their comments fall to the bottom of the comment thread automatically?
mk  ·  4582 days ago  ·  link  ·  
No. It's been the working plan, however. The only problem, is that it would only really work with top comments in the thread. You wouldn't want a troll reply to send a great comment down to the bottom.
thenewgreen  ·  4582 days ago  ·  link  ·  
Maybe just the troll reply goes to the bottom and you can click "see in context", if you want to get your "troll on".
mk  ·  4582 days ago  ·  link  ·  
TBH I think that could become a formatting nightmare. If possible, I'd like to avoid schemes that break the comment threads.

One other thought: although you might not see the ignored comment, everyone else does, and therefore it can still disrupt the conversation.

speeding_snail  ·  4582 days ago  ·  link  ·  
How about a collapsed comment? So you can ignore the comment, but if it is important for the conversation, you can expand it and read it. A bit like Reddit with comments under the treshold.
mk  ·  4582 days ago  ·  link  ·  
That's not a bad idea, but I am not sure if it really discourages trollish behavior.