[POLL] Abolish the "ignore" function.

[norton ash]

But some of what Albanian Delusion posts is useful and interesting. He/she clearly has an agenda that I often disagree with, but if people want to post lots of material, go ahead. I have a perfectly good ignore mechanism already.

[Iamwhomiam]

There's only so much any third party can do to resolve an issue at least one of two others are having between themselves. At some point you two have to come to terms with each other's behavior.

When you leave your house and every time you turn to the right the guy next door slugs you in the jaw, sooner or later you learn to find another route.

[brekin]

Let me get this straight.
You have a problem with "one disingenous [sic] and solipsistic poster in particular".
So you want to get rid of the "ignore" function.
When you could use the "ignore" function to solve your problem with the one poster you have an issue with?
Truly an example of "the problem is the solution".

You haven't got it straight.
Once more, slowly: A discussion in which the participants are allowed and encouraged to ignore each other is not merely a worthless discussion; it is not a discussion at all.

Not a discussion.

So you want to get rid of the "ignore" function.
When you could use the "ignore" function to solve your problem with the one poster you have an issue with?

No, that wouldn't solve it at all, obviously. My problem with that poster (and it is most certainly not mine alone) is that he abuses this Discussion Board as his own private Data Dump, thereby spoiling the Discussion Board. If I and a hundred other posters were to ignore the fact that he is abusing the board, that would do precisely nothing to alter the fact that he is abusing the board and thereby spoiling it. Just as choosing to ignore child abuse does precisely nothing to solve the problem of child abuse. Just as ignoring flytipping does nothing to discourage flytipping. On the contrary.

Putting aside the obvious irony of Mac giving notes to others on how to engage in a "discussion".
It seems you have an inner conflict Mac.
You want to engage someone in a discussion who...is ignoring you.
But the discussion would be about you accusing them of what you consider data dumping.
So, you aren't allowed to harass a poster on a internet discussion board who probably put you on ignore in the first place because you were harassing them?
A pickle indeed.

This is funny because I am experiencing something similar in my life.
There are numerous attractive famous actresses who don't call me.
Thereby robbing me of the chance to guilt trip them about their lack of courtesy in not calling me.
I mean, how can they ignore me when I have so much to complain and unload about to them?

Your compatriot in arms to Abolish the "ignore" function in life~brekin

[Iamwhomiam]

^^^ Not Jodie Foster again!

[82_28]

Who are the currently standing "2" no people so I can feed my paradoxical feedback loop?

[MacCruiskeen]

But some of what Albanian Delusion posts is useful and interesting.

Monkeys, typewriters. eternity, etc. In any case, norton, it's not the point.

He/she clearly has an agenda that I often disagree with, but if people want to post lots of material, go ahead. I have a perfectly good ignore mechanism already.

The point is not just that I disagree with him and his (pseudleft, warmongering) agenda, nor is it just that I detest his dishonesty and evasiveness. It is that he persistently and grossly abuses both the rules and the spirit of this Discussion Board. Sometimes you post things I disagree with, occasionally vehemently. But you don't take giant dumps on this Discussion Board, and certainly not daily. Nor do you hide behind the ignore function. Nor does anyone else do either of those things.

No one else would get away with it.

Btw, I barely posted here in the first three months of this year. Like more and more people, I have been weaning myself off this place. Back in February I did look in once and the top seven threads were all threads started by Albanian Delusion, and the last post in each of those threads was by guess who. He was replying to himself, and of course agreeing with himself, with even more copy-and-paste. Like many Americans, he cannot abide being contradicted. (The rest of Page 1 was all Trump threads at the time.)

The world as dump, and as Data Dump: that's the American dream, and that's the project for this no-longer-new century.

[identity]

Back in February I did look in once and the top seven threads were all threads started by Albanian Delusion, and the last post in each of those threads was by guess who. He was replying to himself, and of course agreeing with himself, with even more copy-and-paste. Like many Americans, he cannot abide being contradicted. (The rest of Page 1 was all Trump threads at the time.)

If you create a new poll, asking if we should split RI in two, one with all the T___p and AD threads, and the other entirely without these, I'll certainly vote "yes!"

[JackRiddler]

.

This is an open Internet board where anyone out of literally billions of people might wander in and start posting, with mixed results. More recently it's not been moderated very much, for which I don't blame the surviving moderator, although a round of guillotining of the Nazilite element would be lovely. They can go play elsewhere.

It's generally not a community, though sometimes it turns into one. Often it's full of interesting material and points me to interesting material. It's enriched my life, also given me an outlet to spend many hours in collecting data and having debates and flamewars with mostly anonymous entities, time that I would better spend elsewhere. Also, I've met a couple of RI people in rl, that was worth it.

Beyond a few first posts, I feel no obligation to have to engage with those who prove themselves uninteresting or repetitive or predictable or stupid to me. Ignore is a useful function for that. I mean seriously, some are so dumb and annoying that I want to reduce the temptation to waste my time responding to them. This is not a blinders effect, since it has never happened that one of these cases surprised me, or that I didn't get a whiff of whatever they thought about my own thoughts (through quote function, etc.). Contrary to the deep philosophies of Eli Pariser, it's not like I'm insulated from twaddle about how the universe is created entirely by your thoughts, at least when it is not ruled by a lone Jewish billionaire who hates you and is poisoning your wells and is also causing your women to be uppity.

And now to the theme of this thread. Ignore is obviously very useful with those who have a tendency to post miles of highly predictable stuff without commentary (of which I count two extremely active and one fairly frequent). One of the two extremely active, the one who prompted MacC to start this thread, is better at limiting the flood to a set of vanity threads, in keeping with the quasi-etiquette of the board (does it matter if the stuff goes into Data Dump? Isn't everyone using "Show active threads" by now?). In part because he is perceived as enemy by the several actual Nazilites on the board, and in part because his practice is often tone-deaf and annoying, he gets a lot more abuse than the other extremely active, who generally posts reams on the same subject on every thread no matter how tenuous the relationship without fail and without any particular logic (which is a shame, since it would make a well-ordered data dump), and who has become a version of HMW compulsively spinning every thread into a bizarre KWH discussion.

Anyway, rather than scroll down eighteen or fifty screens to next post, (often only to discover it's more by the same poster), by having either of these on ignore (which I do on and off), I save bits of my precious time.

So, MacC, you know you've adopted an off-center target. I get it, it's like the female legislators who propose rectal probes for Viagra prescriptions, in order to highlight the absurdity of anti-abortion laws. But what you really want to achieve is a direct banishing of the one who bothers you, which has not worked so far. Can I interest you in an ostrakos system? I'd vote yes on that. Depending on how voting privileges are determined, there's a not-insubstantial chance I'd be the first pushed out.

.

[MacCruiskeen]

Who are the currently standing "2" no people so I can feed my paradoxical feedback loop?

50% of those two posters are certainly brekin, who would argue that the world is flat if I said it was round. I suspect that the other 50% is whom they am.

Funnily enough, both of them seem quite incapable of stating why they support the ignore function, while also failing to follow their own so freely-rendered advice (to me) on How To Deal With Uncongenial Posts (i.e., "just use the ignore function").

[MacCruiskeen]

what you really want to achieve is a direct banishing of the one who bothers you

No. Ffs, Jack. It ain't rocket science. I want him to stop abusing the board.

For the record, I have never advocated banning anyone. If that's what I wanted to do, then I would do it.

[JackRiddler]

what you really want to achieve is a direct banishing of the one who bothers you

No. Ffs, Jack. It ain't rocket science. I want him to stop abusing the board.

For the record, I have never advocated banning anyone. If that's what I wanted to do, then I would do it.

Well it's a roundabout way of making this board abuse an issue.

[MacCruiskeen]

It's his main ruse and his main figleaf. Also, this is not the first time I have tried. I was less "roundabout" about it last time and I got suspended for it. The words and works of Albanian Delusion are sacrosanct.

I am also curious to know how many people agree with me about the ignore function. It is the death of any discussion board. Hence the poll.

[Blue]

It's not fruhmenschen I'm talking about. Fruhmenschen is harmless by comparison, and he did at least take most of his dumps to the actual Data Dump, eventually.

I really see more complaints from you about one member's postings than I do of efforts from you to engage in discussing the topic posted.

Precisely what would be the point of me "making an effort to engage in discussing the topic posted", when the disingenuous solipsist who started the topic has placed me -- and almost every other poster on this (former) Discussion Board -- "on ignore"?

How do you know AD has you and almost every other poster on ignore?

I don't think abolishing the ignore function would change that person's posting habits. Maybe just ask AD to limit the numbers of posts per day or something.

I believe there are more serious problems here that led to many posters leaving.

[82_28]

Who are the currently standing "2" no people so I can feed my paradoxical feedback loop?

50% of those two posters are certainly brekin, who would argue that the world is flat if I said it was round. I suspect that the other 50% is whom they am.

Funnily enough, both of them seem quite incapable of stating why they support the ignore function, while also failing to follow their own so freely-rendered advice (to me) on How To Deal With Uncongenial Posts (i.e., "just use the ignore function").

I don't think I have had a "problem" in the last several years other than that flat Earth person. I needled that motherfucker. I didn't want to. But no way no how was I going to toss his ass into "ignore". I dunno. Shit happens.

(I actually enjoyed that flat Earth thread -- like fish in a barrel)

But I wouldn't have put him on ignore. He didn't bother me none, but he was just wrong. I can, most of us can, handle people that are obscenely wrong.

[brekin]

Who are the currently standing "2" no people so I can feed my paradoxical feedback loop?

50% of those two posters are certainly brekin, who would argue that the world is flat if I said it was round. I suspect that the other 50% is whom they am.
Funnily enough, both of them seem quite incapable of stating why they support the ignore function, while also failing to follow their own so freely-rendered advice (to me) on How To Deal With Uncongenial Posts (i.e., "just use the ignore function").

Actually, I don't vote in polls- think they are a waste of time. One could say I vote independent/green when it comes to online polls.
But as to why I support the ignore function? Seems pretty self explanatory.
To allow people to ignore posters that they don't get along with.
Which then prevents long unwanted, usually non-consensual pages of hyper-agro tit for tat flame wars.
This is a "General Discussion" forum, not a mass indoctrination arena where people have to listen to anyone for any amount of time if they don't wish.
Likewise, if you don't agree with someone, let them know, if they don't like the what or why or how of that, then they are free to ignore you, just as in real life.
There is no reason individuals or even small cliques have to discourse with anyone on anything.

Operating under a variant of the Gestalt "prayer" is probably the best way to approach the forum instead of some variant of Robert's Rule of Order.
As nothing really every comes of any thread, (any action or decision) even if there is a consensus, I think you should realize that in the end, this is just a conspiracy lonely hearts club, another social network and not some sanctum of rational truth. And it has always been that way. I think it is telling that J.W. only exists on Facebook now and not here. Approaching threads from an argumentative 'who has the ultimate truth" angle, and running a thread like ones own Senate committee investigation is really not going to work out in the long run.