phpBB Ignore list

[Lazloth]

thread[/url]"]I really would like to start ignoring a lot of people that show an overall poor level of quality in their posts for the sake of cleaning up the board.

Adding moderating features or ignore lists would be a great addition to this list.

Would be something for Brix to test and implement, but the mod is available.  http://www.phpbb.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=24052

[Anonymous]

Forgive me, but I just think its very funny to think that the staff would invest the time and money to implement a much nicer GDB and then they would turn around and implement a way for us not to interact.

Its kinda like buying the postman a nice new truck and then chopping down mailboxes....

Honestly, I don't think of myself as someone with a tremendous amount of willpower or personal strength, yet I am able to use the scroll bar to ignore people pretty well.

[Shinigami]

Suck it up.   :lol:

No, really... I'm with CRW here.  Scrolling past posts is a fine way of dealing with posts that you don't care to read, and by ignoring someone, you are not only depriving yourself of making out threads in which they posted, but also depriving them of your insight.

We don't all agree, we aren't all as eloquent as some in our prose, yet here we are... the ArmageddonMUD community.  Live it, learn it, love it.

[krelin]

This may have some value if whoever owns www.zalanthas.org pays for their bandwidth.  Allowing the server to filter out posts from people I don't have any interest in would probably over the long-run (and spread across however many users the board has) save a fair chunk of bytes.  And it's a patch that already exists.  I like the feature, if Brixius is willing to implement.

[Lazloth]

[edit:] Added a worthless poll.  Though I respect where CRW & Shinigami is coming from, I wouldn't mind seeing this feature.

[deviant storm]

I agree with CRW. The GDB isn't broke, it doesn't need fixing.

If you don't like what someone has to say, don't read it. Or argue against it, for that matter. As long as people dont personally attack others, it's all good.

[DrunkenSalarr]

There I plenty of people I ignore, but every once in a while they actually post somethin worth reading.  I wouldn't use a coded ignore feature becaue it would deprive me of (just a very few, mind you) good post.  Just scroll past it, We do it in game, we can do it here.

~Drunken Salarr

The short figure in the red, mexican wrestling mask mutters, in sirihish:
"Scroll it down, Just scroll it down, Scroll Buttons 2.0"

[Fedaykin]

Even the ones who makes posts that are typically "worthless" in the eyes of others do explound kernels of wisdom or insight, or at least get people thinking now and again.

Imagine trying to have a discussion on a topic where everyone is ignoring a varying group of people, and as such a coherent discussion is impossible because people will be missing chunks of the discussion others are seeing, or perhaps restating views already expressed by someone on their ignore list.

This could cause more trouble than it would be worth.  I think people will just have to deal with the minor incoveniences.  Besides, you can always pm someone, tell them you hate them and their posts and ask them to tone it down    j/k

[gfair]

The ones who want to read all the posts are free and clear to do so - look at Slashdot, for example.  Slashdot gives contributors the ability to filter out the low-quality posts, or read every single post, flames, beastiality links and all.  It's your choice.  Slashdot's system is much more complex than the ignore list I would like to see here, but the result is the same: you read only those messages deemed to be of the high, or low quality you are looking for.

This has nothing to do with any notion of a broken GDB list.  My comment, used by the person to start the poll, says NOTHING about the list being broken.  It is simply something I would like to have, to cut down on the number of posts in any given thread, for whatever reasons anyone wants to choose.

[Fedaykin]

In other words, you would be able to arbitrarily cut out the posts made by anyone whos comments you deem as "low quality" leading to you viewing threads with points, valid or not, being missed.  This leads to the possibility of anyone with people on ignore reposting points already stated that they missed, causing those of us who are not using the ignore options to endure further spam and clone point posts.

While we aren't all American here, I still believe in a fundamental right to the freedom of speech, regardless of the quality of that speech.  I  also don't think this board is suffering from an over abundance of low quality posts, flames or bestiality links at the present time.  We have board users numbering in the few hundreds, most of whom don't even post.  This sort of board is not the place for this sort of option.

For all of the above reasons, I am against an ignore option of any sort.

[gfair]

Even the ones who makes posts that are typically "worthless" in the eyes of others do explound kernels of wisdom or insight, or at least get people thinking now and again.

No, not really.  The entire world of usenet forums serves to prove this.  Inevitably, on any list of more than a few people of like interest, there are readers who invariably begin ignoring the contributions of certain other people.

Imagine trying to have a discussion on a topic where everyone is ignoring a varying group of people, and as such a coherent discussion is impossible because people will be missing chunks of the discussion others are seeing, or perhaps restating views already expressed by someone on their ignore list.

Unlikely - again, there is so much participation on this group, that chances are not all people will be ignoring all others.  The subset combinations are just that unlikely to match.  You may see a post from someone responding to a person on your ignore list, and respond to that, so any posts that a group of people deem worth responding to will still emerge out of anonymity to come to your attention.

Even better would be Slashdot-style moderating... it's a great concept, and works incredibly well.

This could cause more trouble than it would be worth.  I think people will just have to deal with the minor incoveniences.  Besides, you can always pm someone, tell them you hate them and their posts and ask them to tone it down    j/k

Actually, it will be very easy - as Lasloth points out, the mod file is already available on the phpBB website, which is going to save a lot of work.  The testing and debugging might be a bit harder, but I doubt it is too much of a challenge considering the file is made for this forum software and has already been implemented.

[DrunkenSalarr]

Speaking of bestiality links, AC hasn't given her opinion yet.

Drunken Salarr, who is giving a good example of a post worth skipping.

[gfair]

This leads to the possibility of anyone with people on ignore reposting points already stated that they missed, causing those of us who are not using the ignore options to endure further spam and clone point posts.

There are always disadvantages - there are also tons of dup posts all the time.  This really isn't a big issue.

While we aren't all American here, I still believe in a fundamental right to the freedom of speech, regardless of the quality of that speech.

Unfortunately, Fedaykin, not only does being American, or living in a democracy have nothing to do with freedom of speech, but this is not a public board, and the admins reserve the right to delete any posts. More than that, they have deleted at least a few posts. For your review:

<a href="http://www.zalanthas.org/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=2316&highlight=thread+deleted">Example 1</a>
<a href="http://www.zalanthas.org/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=1477&highlight=thread+deleted">Example 2</a>
<a href="http://www.zalanthas.org/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=981&highlight=thread+deleted">Example 3</a>

Unfortunately, this is a simple reality of all forums.

Nothing about an ignore list does anything to tarnish your freedom to speak.  In fact, Slashdot's moderating features mean that they have never deleted any more than one single post on their forum, tolerating any content.  They only once deleted a post, and that was after a lawsuit when someone decided to post copyright material to the board, and the copyright owner sued.  Whether or not the Admins choose to implement that moderating system is up to them - but with it in place, and with active participation, they have the option of never needing to delete anything, unlike in the current system where they delete IC information and flame wars.

So in actual fact, supporting moderating features may help you defend freedom of speech, given that the admins buy-in, rather than choosing to withhold the option to delete posts.  Personally, I'm fine with either decision, but your support for Slashdot-style moderating would only make it better.

[Shinigami]

We do have moderators... they're called Staff.

Beyond that, I personally find comparing our playerbase and our GDB to usenet highly offensive.  Needless to say, Staff will -never- allow the board to become such an unmonitored place, so the point is invalid, in my opinion.

This is, of course, my opinion.

[creeper386]

I'm guessing your idea of moderating is every post posted has to go through a staff members hands before it gets into public eyes. Which if it is, it's really a terrible idea. The staff may be the staff, and could filter out IC things or major flames and such, but they are still a small group, if the whole board had their hands in on the moderating system theres a good chance having them decide what is GOOD enough wouldn't really be a good idea.

Now with ignoring people. Not that good of an idea. Sure, lots of people say they would ignore me. Then scroll past my posts. I'll assure you there are quite a few people out there that I tend to just barely skim or completely skip when I see them post. It's quite easy.

And for the terms of bandwidth... I don't think it'd really save much over all to make a grand amount of difference... But I don't know much about that whole thing so it's just a guess.

Creeper

[gfair]

I'm guessing your idea of moderating is every post posted has to go through a staff members hands before it gets into public eyes. Which if it is, it's really a terrible idea.

No, no way would I ask this to be a staff thing, and it isn't. I think I mentioned it in previous posts on the thread, but the Slashdot moderation system is 100% performed by readers, and it frees up a lot of time for the Staff to devote to other things, like growing the reader base, and increasing overall quality of the website.  Slashdot is a massive success, and its experiment in moderation is a major factor in that success.

This is a distributed system based on "karma" (the SLASHDOT style of karma, and NOT Arm Karma), which is earned by having their posts "moderated up" in levels, after they prove to be consistently capable of not flaming, not trolling, and contributing valuable items.  The things that get moderated down (again, all by the users) are flames, and other rubbish.

So to answer your question - no.  No way would I ask the Staff to review every single post - the Slashdot system has its readers review the posts, and the posts go up immediately after the writer hits the submit button, the moderation happens whenever a moderator comes along.

Now with ignoring people. Not that good of an idea.

So be it... the ability to ignore people was a simple system, Slashdot-moderating features are a more advanced system.  So long as we get either one, I'll be happy, and they are two separate systems, by the way.

And for the terms of bandwidth... I don't think it'd really save much over all to make a grand amount of difference... But I don't know much about that whole thing so it's just a guess.

The slashdot system has the ability to avoid huge amounts of data - if you read at level 5, reading only the highest quality posts, the ratio of level 5 to all posts can literally be 1:10 or much higher on some issues, so you are only getting 1/10th the amount of data transmitted to read what you are interested in.

[creeper386]

Oh, alright. I now know what your talking about by moderation. Still don't much like it, but that could be because I don't trust people at all, and hate little cliques and such that tend to develop in such enviroments(Not saying it would here. Just saying thats what tends to happen and it's rather lame) I remember back when the idea was all brought in...

And even if you toss out the cliques problem and everything. You well still have the problem of missing alot of things. If you only read 1 out of 10 posts, even 1 out of 2 posts... It'd be a good chance you'd miss alot of things, have troubles figuring out where the discussion is going and where it's came from. As well as the other things people have mentioned alot such as repeating things(Which happens ALOT already) and so on and so forth.

Creeper who still thinks the scroll bar works quite well, even better if you have a mouse with a middle wheel and a browser compatible with it.

[Fedaykin]

Unfortunately, Fedaykin, not only does being American, or living in a democracy have nothing to do with freedom of speech, but this is not a public board, and the admins reserve the right to delete any posts. More than that, they have deleted at least a few posts. For your review:

<a href="http://www.zalanthas.org/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=2316&highlight=thread+deleted">Example 1</a>
<a href="http://www.zalanthas.org/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=1477&highlight=thread+deleted">Example 2</a>
<a href="http://www.zalanthas.org/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=981&highlight=thread+deleted">Example 3</a>

Ahh, so you're saying that in instances of extreme "low quality" posts in the past, the owners of the board have taken the initiative and deleted such posts?  That is certainly further reasoning against the need for an ignore feature if they're handling such matters on their boards themselves.

The simple fact that I pointed to the fact that I believe in the freedom of speech despite us all -not- being American should tell you that I wasn't pointing to the first ammendment of the U.S. Constitution and stating that this was a legal issue, or had anything to do with living in a democracy.  Belief that what I consider to be fundamental rights should be protected transcends American or democratic government.  I believe, and apparently the staff seemingly believes that people should be allowed to express their views, as often as they like, provided they do so in a reasonable manner.  The fact that this is a private board is not an automatic reason to allow people to be ignored in discussions.

The lowest quality posts on this forum do not even nearly reach the level of quality displayed on much larger forums.  As such you have to balance the following:  You having to skim a few posts now and then vs. alienating a group of people from discussions.

I'm sorry, but given that choice, I think its pretty clear that you or others enduring such a minorly inconvenient burden of skimming those posts is a betther choice when compared with the burden of individuals being ignored in discussions.

In addition, having not seen the slashdot system in action, I believe you're saying that readers review such topics, perhaps by voting etc.?  In that case, it seems like we'd be subsituting one minor time consuming inconvenience for another.  I also very much agree with Creeper's reasoning for not liking such systems stated in the above post.

The board may not be perfect, but it is by no means broke, so there is no need to fix it.

[krelin]

How does freedom of speech enter into this discussion in any way?  My wanting to ignore people programmatically, in no way infringes on their right to freedom of speech.  They can still talk, it's just easier for me not to hear it.  As for the concern that people will post repetitively, covering things that have already been covered, those are -JUST- the sort of people I'd like to ignore.  This feature isn't a negative one in any way.  If you are opposed to it, don't use it.  The only valid negative argument to implementing it is that Brixius might not feel like putting the time in.  That's entirely up to him, though.

[DrunkenSalarr]

WARNING: THE FOLLOWING POST MAY SOUND HARSH AND COME OFF TO SOME AS A FLAME.  THIS IS NOT MY INTENTION.[/list]

So be it... the ability to ignore people was a simple system, Slashdot-moderating features are a more advanced system.  So long as we get either one, I'll be happy, and they are two separate systems, by the way.

There is a third system, and it's already in place, It is the ignore system that is in your head.  I can think of a few people I know IRL that I just tune out because I've never heard them say anything meaningful.  This is text, it doesn't take up that much bandwidth.  The overly long post are few and far between.

There are always disadvantages - there are also tons of dup posts all the time. This really isn't a big issue.

IMO, It is a big issue.  Yes, there are dup post now. And we, as the readers of the board (staff and players alike) try to keep those down to a minimum. Dup post will always happen.  But right now they don't happen too often.  The number of dup post will increase if an ignore feature is implemented.  For those of you worried about bandwidth, the ammount of dup post will cause more of an issue, IMO, than the ignored posts.

...look at Slashdot, for example.

I don't think that is a fair comparison.  That would be like Philomath, GA (actual place, home of about 7-12 families and maybe 100 people) saying that they need a SWAT team because Atlanta has one.  The total number of users and posts is so massive that they need a system like that.  Currently there are less than 500 regestered users, many of which are inactive, don't post at all, or secondary accounts for the same people.  As I mentioned above we currently police ourselves for content, dup post, etc, without any seperate utilities.  Until our playerbase grows to the point to where we can no longer do that, then lets consider things.

Now, if we had a feature that would let us ignore an entire thread, I think that would be much more useful.  I know some threads just reach a point to where I click on them just to remove the unread flag.  Something to ignore those treads would be useful (at least to me).

~Drunken Salarr, who wishes to appologise to gfair, we both seem to have very strong views in opposing directions on this issue.  I may disagree with you, but I respect you.

[gfair]

Oh, alright. I now know what your talking about by moderation. Still don't much like it, but that could be because I don't trust people at all, and hate little cliques

Little cliques are dwarfed by a readership of hundreds, fortunately.  And also, Slashdot moderation has meta-moderation - where you moderate the moderations made by others.  So if there is a clique that mod down all the posts from one person, eventually they lose their ability to moderate, by having the community take away their privileges to moderate.  So... no cliques can influence what is seen.

And even if you toss out the cliques problem and everything. You well still have the problem of missing alot of things. If you only read 1 out of 10 posts, even 1 out of 2 posts... It'd be a good chance you'd miss alot of things, have troubles figuring out where the discussion is going and where it's came from.

Not at all - you know where the discussion is by reading the first post in the thread.  The only things removed are the responses, which are moderated, so you always know what the topic is.  And you choose to read on level 5, level -1, any level you want.

As well as the other things people have mentioned alot such as repeating things(Which happens ALOT already) and so on and so forth.

No, again, in the Slashdot system, the original post (the one that is duplicated later) is moderated up or down.  Duplicate posts are generally not moderated, or if they say something better, then they should be given equal consideration. Shoot, the Arm admins could even add a -Duplicate flag so if people want to consider posts duplicates, they can moderate them as dupes, and then the Arm admins can go and do a batch delete of the duplicates every now and then, which would eliminate all dupes that have been flagged.

It's an end to all duplicates, and saves bandwidth AGAIN.

[Fedaykin]

As for the concern that people will post repetitively, covering things that have already been covered, those are -JUST- the sort of people I'd like to ignore.

Sounds like a paradox then.  You want to ignore those who post repetitively, but run the risk of becomming such a person yourself when you start posting ideas or comments similar to those of people you might be ignoring.

[Malifaxis]

I can't guarantee that I'll control my language on this one.

What the FUCK kind of an elitist mindset do you have to be in to believe that only what you consider to be important should be shown?  So F'ing what if you don't think that poster blahdeblah has a shred of grey matter between the ears?

Maybe I'm an elitist, but in my mindset (which, by the way, I will never try to push on anyone else) everyone has a goddamn mouth, and a set of ten (average, mind you) fingers to type with.  And the fact that they have been given these things makes them a contributor.  And therefore, no matter what the hell they have to say, I'm interested in listening.

Maybe it's because my greatest hatred, my only personal bias, is f'ing ignorance.  And actually, even ignorance isn't that bad... because X person simply DOES NOT KNOW about something.  What really trips my fucking trigger is when people WILLINGLY make sure they're ignorant of some form of knowledge.

To use an example, I'm going to utter that phrase which almost always brings bile to the mouths of the friends I have in RL:  "Well, lets take a look at the Nazis."  You can bitch and moan all night about how the Nazis were evil, and how they should be shot, and blah blah blah... I'm not saying I disagree, mind you, I'd put a bullet through anyone who was trying to shove a friend in to a gas shower, but that's not the crux of this point.  What is the crux is that while the Nazis were vile (for the most part) and sadistic and racist... they had something to say.  And they said it.  And you know what?  (A *lot* of people aren't going to like this) They saved a LOT of lives through the experiments they held.  Like it or not, much of our medicinal world is now based heavily on the findings of the Nazis.  Hence, while they did kill off some bajillion obscene amount of people, they also benefitted all of mankind.  But the forces of good defeated them.

How did we do it?  We knew about them.  We studied them, and we learned weaknesses and we struck at them.  

If a pro-Nazi bastich gets up on stage to spout his racist views, it's stupid and inefficient to boo them off.  Let them speak.  Hear what they have to say, and learn from it.  I'm not saying agree with it, I'm saying take the information and fucking process it in your goddamn brain.  Learn something, for fucks sake, about what you hate.  Then oppose them in a manner which will be effective.  Express your views, and if they have even a shred of intellect, they will listen to you as well.

I know that by posting this, I have made the possible 'ignore' list of several people.  Fine, I don't give a flying fuck.  Live in ignorance of my views if you want.  Won't affect me a damn bit.  But you know what?  When I'm discussing pkill tactics on a public forum, and your character ends up walking in to one of the umpteen bajillion traps I may relate publically, you've no one to blame but your damn fool self.

Knowledge is power, no matter where it comes from.

But I wouldn't expect you to know that...

F'ing wankers.

[deviant storm]

Heh, don't hold back, Malifaxis. Tell us how you really feel.  :twisted:

[krelin]

I can't guarantee that I'll control my language on this one.

What the FUCK kind of an elitist mindset do you have to be in to believe that only what you consider to be important should be shown?  So F'ing what if you don't think that poster blahdeblah has a shred of grey matter between the ears?

I see that this is a subject you're sensitive to.  I don't think that the intent of an "Ignore" feature to to exclude people from contributing, but instead to allow other people to filter the contributions they'd like to see.  I'm sorry that you seem to be so personally offended at my desire to avoid a few people.

Maybe I'm an elitist, but in my mindset (which, by the way, I will never try to push on anyone else) everyone has a goddamn mouth, and a set of ten (average, mind you) fingers to type with.  And the fact that they have been given these things makes them a contributor.  And therefore, no matter what the hell they have to say, I'm interested in listening.

Yes, certainly everyone is welcome to contribute.  That's sort of the point of the internet in general, and discussion boards in particular.  However, most modern, computer-based discussion mechanisms provide "filtering" functionality for a variety of reasons:  convenience, bandwidth, harassment, idiocy, disagreement.  It may be convenient for me to ignore Rindan because his posts are historically long, or ShaLeah because she's -always- posting porn (which would be fine except maybe I have a slow link?), or you, because you curse too much for my taste.  None of these are personal attacks.  I might even want to ignore COGATO...  but nevermind that.

Maybe it's because my greatest hatred, my only personal bias, is f'ing ignorance.  And actually, even ignorance isn't that bad... because X person simply DOES NOT KNOW about something.  What really trips my fucking trigger is when people WILLINGLY make sure they're ignorant of some form of knowledge.

If you feel I'm ignorant, you should perhaps consider ignoring me (using the new feature, if Brixius is kind enough to implement it).  This will spare you becoming upset over this and future posts of mine.

Long tirade about Nazis snipped
Live in ignorance of my views if you want.  Won't affect me a damn bit.  But you know what?  When I'm discussing pkill tactics on a public forum, and your character ends up walking in to one of the umpteen bajillion traps I may relate publically, you've no one to blame but your damn fool self.

The desire for an ignore functionality is really a simple convenience.  It has nothing to do with Nazis or ignorance.  It has to do with hoping to increase the signal to noise ratio to an effort to hear only "signal" that is interesting to me.  When you listen to the radio, do you try to tune in every channel at once?

Knowledge is power, no matter where it comes from.

But I wouldn't expect you to know that...

F'ing wankers.

I don't MUD for knowledge.  I don't participate on this discussion board for knowledge.  If you do, I can suggest a number of significantly more effective resources on the 'net.[/i]

[Angela Christine]

Speaking of bestiality links, AC hasn't given her opinion yet.

Well, since you asked.   :twisted:  I think most of the offensive/pointless/offensive/silly posts occur in the OOC Chatter forum.  If you only want hardcore Armageddon posts, avoid the OOC chatter forum, it is easy.  I usually ignore threads on music and sports, it is dead easy even without a coded ignore feature.  Having people download posts they aren't interested in doesn't waste much resource-wise, on a small board like this an extra layer of code and calculations to give everyone a customized view would probably "waste" as much system resources as the excess posts.

Personally, I have http://www.zalanthas.org/phpBB2/search.php?search_id=newposts bookmarked, that way when I visit the board only the threads with new posts appear in the list.  This gives me the title of the thread, the board it was posted to, the name of the member who started the thread, and the name of the most recent poster.  If I don't like the topic or the poster, I don't click on it.  That seems simple enough to me.

If I had to choose, I'd rather go back to the old GDB where subthreads were obvious and easy to avoid then go to a bloated moderation system.  It is slow enough as it is, I don't need more pointless features sucking resources.  

But I'm one of the worthless 500+ posters, so pay no attention to me.  :evil:

AC

[creeper386]

I have now decided to found the 500+ Post Count Posters, FPPCP for short. And I place AC as president... The red dot told me too.

Okay, I TRIED really hard not to touch this post any more... Or the other one... But I couldn't help it after ACs post. I think I've done enough to post my opinion, and I'm going to have to stick with the people who got offended because of our uninformed opinion.

I disliked the idea before I read anything about slashdots info, I read alittle bit of it, decided it didn't have anything new that gfair didn't already say, and I still don't like the idea. Saying myself or anyone else is misinformed because they don't like your idea, isn't a way to win an arguement. It does get a few things done, but doesn't help the arguement any, except maybe against your favor.

Creeper who feels if you don't like someones posts don't read them, but if you want to only read what your interested in, how does completely ignoring people help any, for the most part even people who's posts I find "difficult" to read sometimes do come up with good ideas/points or just something interesting.

[Brixius]

I'm going to post the same message in both these threads mostly because the same arguements work for both discussions.

First off, I am against both of these ideas. While I agree that being able to filter out posts based on author is tempting, and being able to rate posts Slashdot style is inviting, I don't think we have the userbase that requires either of those features. Plus we have a set-up that tends to focus fluff, nonsense posts into one area where it can be ignored by me, heh.

I'll adress a few items point by point:

This may have some value if whoever owns www.zalanthas.org pays for their bandwidth.

This isn't really much of an issue. The hosting plan we're on allows 25 gigs of bandwidth a month and we use around 3. I wouldn't mind trying to find ways to make more use of Zalanthas and get more bandwidth off of Ginka allowing what Ginka has to be used for sweet-sweet text flow.

Slashdot's system is much more complex than the ignore list I would like to see here, but the result is the same: you read only those messages deemed to be of the high, or low quality you are looking for.

I disagree. With the Slashdot style moderation, you get the content people think is worth reading. With the ignore list, you get to read brilliant ideas and mindless drivel from people you personally deem worthy of hearing it from and miss all the brilliant ideas and midless drivel from people you don't deem worthy of hearing from. The ignore list has nothing to do with weeding out poor quality posts but more of ignoring individuals regardless of whether their post contained quality information or not.

but with it in place, and with active participation, they have the option of never needing to delete anything, unlike in the current system where they delete IC information and flame wars.

IC posts would still need deleting, I believe. As would most flame wars. If I remember Slashdot right (And it has been a while since I visited) anyone could still view any posts if they set their threashhold low enough, meaning even if a post were declared "too IC" people with a threshhold set to -1 could still read it. Flamewars would need deleting for the same reason. Those involved would just set their threshhold to -1 and keep flaming away. While this is nice because those with a higher threshhold would avoid it, I personally think most people would keep the threshhold set to -1 to keep from missing anything. Really, we get like 1/10,000 of the traffic Slashdot does and I doubt if we get as many posts in a year as they get in a day so while moderation is necessary to filter out the static there, we have a relatively captive audience. People here are part of a community that is still small enough to be under most spammers radar so we have a much lesser need for filtering posts. Plus, Sanvean has made great strides to expand and bring this community together and I think splintering it apart by creating ignore lists or ways for newer voices to be filtered out through moderation is doing a disservice to that community.

In short, I don't believe this board is large enough to provide the reader resources to properly moderate nor provide the amount of static needed to be moderated. The forum based system seems to also work as a way to 'hide' pointless conversations that have no real bearing on anything.

Brix.

[Callisto]

Two quick points:

1: I'm with Malifaxis - his post said things a little more politely then I would have, though.

2: Can someone tell me how to create colored text like DrunkenSalarr did? Imagine, being able to flame someone in bold red text! Oooh, I'm giddy already!

Thanks.

[John]

When you click reply and write your message you'll notice two drop down boxes, one with "colour". You select the color and this pops up:

Code Select Expand

[color=red][/color]To write your message you go

Code Select Expand

[color=red]WRITE YOUR MESSAGE HERE[/color]

[Callisto]

W....TF?

... that is so embaressing. I can't believe I missed that.

I am a newbie, I know in my heart it is true.

[Bardex]

We got Bob, Carol, Ted, Alice, Bozo, and me. I can't stand reading Bozo's posts, so I have him set to ignore. But I generally like reading the posts of the other four, because they usually have interesting and/or informative and/or amusing things to say.

So Bob starts a thread on a certain mechanic that interests me. Great post, Bob!

Carol adds her two 'sids, then Bozo puts in his drivel. My browser skips over Bozo's and goes on to Ted, Alice, Carol, and Bob all responding to Bozo's post. And as I read each one, I ask myself HUH?

So I go BACK to the config, turn Bozo's ignore set off, BACK to the thread, just to find out what the fuck everyone is talking about.

Seems like a ridiculous waste of time to me, and further if I didn't go back and unignore Bozo and responded to Ted's response that I didn't know was a response because I had Bozo ignored, then I would be contributing to the derailing of the thread, thus placing myself at risk of being ignored, all because I ignored someone else.

I like the boards the way they are. If you see someone's name in a post, you can easily scroll over it. If you see a post from someone you like reading, and they refer to a post you ignored, it's a quick flip of the finger to scroll back up and find out what they're referencing.

What I'd rather see people do, is to make use of the UBB code and include quotes in their posts whenever they respond to a specific post. But that would take individual responsibility, rather than some arbitrary (or not arbitrary) moderating/filtering system.

I much prefer giving people credit for intelligence, and let the unintelligent fall where they may.

[Angela Christine]

Implement ignore list?
Yes      27%  [ 8 ]
No      72%  [ 21 ]

Total Votes : 29

What I find funny is that in the first 24 hours of this topic, only 29 accounts (out of more than 400 possible) bothered to vote at all.  Ironically, it seems that people are already very good at ignoring things.

AC

[Lazloth]

Ironically, it seems that people are already very good at ignoring things.

*snicker* Though the voting majority has pulled its collective weight in the direction of veto, I still think there's some merit here.  Collapsing ignored replies (ie., the XML-style

• next to the poster)..?  Certainly different ways to approach the functionality, but it's a lost battle, I fear, gfair and friends.

[gfair]

*snicker* Though the voting majority has pulled its collective weight in the direction of veto, I still think there's some merit here.  Collapsing ignored replies (ie., the XML-style

• next to the poster)..?  Certainly different ways to approach the functionality, but it's a lost battle, I fear, gfair and friends.

It's too bad we didn't have, say, 100 people vote on this to see a more accurate sampling of the Arm community.  While the Slashdot system may not work as a copy & paste job, what you suggest here might be alright.  Clearly, in light of Brix's response, there doesn't appear to be any support by the IMMs for any sort of change to the present system.

Guess we just have to stock up on extra eye glaze.  Or perhaps similar to email, being able to hide posts and threads you have already read, so as not to have to sort through what you have seen already.  Whatever the case, taking just the vote results and assuming they are representative, over 25% of GDB readers want some form of system to ignore or moderate.  Naturally, this board isn't a democracy, so it's up to the admins, and it seems their opinion is perhaps bolstered by the No results of the poll, but there is a sizeable group that want it (all under the above assumption, of course).

It's too bad we didn't have, say, 100 people vote on this to see a more accurate sampling of the Arm community.

Well, as I see it, more of the active GDB browsers have voted, and those are the people it will affect. So I think it's a decent representation. Personally, I didn't vote for a while, because I wasn't sure which was I wanted to, even though I was leaning towards no to begin with.

I'll add my bit to the discussion though. I don't think ignore lists would be that great for the board, because you wouldn't have people just ignoring people who don't use the boards well. They will likely ignore too, people with differing opinions, people who may be great discussion members, but got on the ignorer's bad side, or even people who have an argumentative flair to their discussions.

Overall, ignore will filter out more "I don't like you"s than it will "You are a waste of board space by posting things in l33t and posting goatse.cs links"

[gfair]

Well, as I see it, more of the active GDB browsers have voted, and those are the people it will affect. So I think it's a decent representation. Personally, I didn't vote for a while, because I wasn't sure which was I wanted to, even though I was leaning towards no to begin with.

Your explanation is the very reason why the results are not representative of the whole board - frequent GDB surfers may be affected, but if what you say is true, and most have voted, then there are maybe 35 "frequent surfers", even less actually.  And as was recently pointed out, there is something like 600 or 1000 active GDB accounts.  Is 35 people representative of 600 or 1000?  Not at all - specifically because of the evidence you present, hinting that most are from one group of GDB readers, and not from all segments of readers.  Market research, in its basic statistical form, would rule out this result as an inadequate sample size.

It also doesn't take into account those people that don't read the GDB at all.  I asked several people I know if they knew about Slashdot, mentioning a post about it on the GDB.  They all said they rarely go to the GDB, hinting that there may be a lot of Arm players that would never come across this post on the GDB, perhaps due to what the GDB is right now.

[Carnage]

Your explanation is the very reason why the results are not representative of the whole board - frequent GDB surfers may be affected, but if what you say is true, and most have voted, then there are maybe 35 "frequent surfers", even less actually.  And as was recently pointed out, there is something like 600 or 1000 active GDB accounts.  Is 35 people representative of 600 or 1000?  Not at all - specifically because of the evidence you present, hinting that most are from one group of GDB readers, and not from all segments of readers.  Market research, in its basic statistical form, would rule out this result as an inadequate sample size.

It also doesn't take into account those people that don't read the GDB at all.  I asked several people I know if they knew about Slashdot, mentioning a post about it on the GDB.  They all said they rarely go to the GDB, hinting that there may be a lot of Arm players that would never come across this post on the GDB, perhaps due to what the GDB is right now.

448, actually. 35 people is basically one person voting out of every thirteen. This isn't market research, but if you want to play that game, getting the opinion out of one of every thirteen people is pretty good for market research. However, this is a poll on a forum that isn't mandatory for people to vote in. Expect some people not to vote, especially considering some of those 448 votes are double accounts. And just out of curiousity, would you be preaching this same argument about how not everybody voted if the argument was leaning in your favor?

Yes, some people don't go to the GDB. I didn't go to the old GDB for over six or seven months when I played. When I actually did actively visit it, I was pleasantly surprised. So your 'perhaps' is pretty much just that: something based on no evidence whatsoever and your own biased opinion.

Why don't you just accept that your idea is something that not many people want and move on?

[Angela Christine]

Why don't you just accept that your idea is something that not many people want and move on?

If he needs to tell himself that the people who voted didn't understand the question and aren't an accurate sample anyway to get through the day, let him.  There are no doubt at least 600-1000 people out there who agree with him completely and the fact that they didn't vote obviously shows how screwed up the current incarnation of the board is.  "The lurkers support me in Email" is a tried and true tactic for when your point of view doesn't seem to catch on.  There's worse lies to tell yourself, at least it's not an appocolypse cult.

AC

[krelin]

*lowering the hand with the knife from his chest* Wait...  it's -not- an apocalypse cult?  Why is it called "armageddon.org", then???

[gfair]

448, actually. 35 people is basically one person voting out of every thirteen. This isn't market research, but if you want to play that game, getting the opinion out of one of every thirteen people is pretty good for market research.

It is good, and I didn't know there were less accounts than I thought.  But your conclusion of what I am saying is entirely wrong - I don't need a greater group to vote, Brix has put the foot down, and I'm trying to move on.  The reason I responded to the point about "frequent GDB readers" having mostly responded is that with just 35 of 448 accounts voting, I would have liked to have seen more people vote.

And just out of curiousity, would you be preaching this same argument about how not everybody voted if the argument was leaning in your favor?

If I did, it was extremely idiotic.  No, if I said that, please accept this correction - I would have liked to see more people vote, perhaps over the remaining 19 or 18 days more people will.  More voters are always preferable to fewer, in any vote.

So your 'perhaps' is pretty much just that: something based on no evidence whatsoever and your own biased opinion.

Actually, the 'perhaps' was really just a wish to have seen a greater turnout, to see if the current results would hold true on a larger set of voters.  Since most elections typically see only a 10% turnout, all people who respect the voting process should like to see a larger turnout, as opposed to a smaller one.

Why don't you just accept that your idea is something that not many people want and move on?

I have - I'm not trying to keep the original thread going, my response was strictly a side issue on the results.

[spawnloser]

Two quick things:

• Mali has the right idea.  When you stop listening, you stop learning.
  
• If you don't like what's on, change the channel.

[Bestatte]

You might consider the 12 out of 13 people who didn't vote a "I really don't care enough to bother voting" vote - since "I really don't care" wasn't an option.

If you do that, then the vast majority really doesn't care. You can count me in as one of them, since even if the ignore option was available, I wouldn't use it - because - I really don't care.