I think when it comes to blocking people, I can see some improvement there. I’m all about the idea of not adding fuel to the fire in the form of pointless online arguments and conflicts.
I see so many online platforms just fucking fail at the ways they try approaching that issue. Most places would let you block a user but they can still see everything that the blocked user has said. Like that opens the doors to exploiting and archiving. It is one thing if you’re logged out and can see things site-wide than it is still being logged in and seeing what was said.
When I block someone, I want to be a ghost to them. I want them to not see anything I’ve said and I wouldn’t want to see anything they’ve said either. I don’t want to block them and find out they engage me on an alt just with things to continue the bullshit with.
I think the Fediverse has corrected that aspect that, when you log off, you can’t see shit. So it prevents that. Though that’s practiced from the instance I’m on for all I know.
However, when logged in and still blocking people, they can still see what was said by those who blocked them.
Furthermore and this is a bit of a controversial part, is that, I think moderation logs to be open is a bad idea. Again, it is to me, just one more thing to add to the fuel of a fire that isn’t being let to wind down. Because people often jab and joust at others with shit like “LOOK WHUT U DID IN THUH MODERATION LOG!” and that just does nothing but escalate.
I think with some of these kinds of corrections, would promote the idea of a healthier ecosystem for the community.
Yes, I like the idea of a “two-side” block. It really could calm down situations. For example I have a guy who shouts “bot” or “troll” whenever we appear in one thread. It would save me a few bans if he couldn’t see my posts.
Someone floated the idea of people being able to do temporary blocks, to allow for cooling off. But the problem with two-side blocks is that it’s often used to shut down discussion rather than function as a meaningful block.
Also, people can spin up alternative accounts on here on different instances easily. So the impact of a two-way block will always have much less value if someone is truly determined to irritate you on here as compared to Reddit. Ultimately your harasser is a community instance issue, so far as I can see.
Shut down the discussion? How is it a problem? It is the very purpose. I just don’t want to have anything to do with some user. And I don’t want him to have anything to do with me. Discussion is impossible in the first place.
Yes, “determined” enemy can still bypass the “ban”, but do we have any significant amount of such people? Most will forget the situation in 10 minutes after the irritating person is out of sight.
People can make an argument and block the other user to force the last word essentially. Blocking is a difficult discussion however you try to do it because there’s no right answer.
Yes we do. It’s trivial to spin up alternative accounts.