The Ethics of Two Way Ignore

[Old Fezziwig]

It wasn't intended as a defense.

I thought you were suggesting those were mitigating factors in why the number of people blocking/ignoring you was misleading or otherwise not useful or meaningful. My bad.

 

[Umbran]

For some reason you seem to take delight in rubbing my nose in the number of folks who have me blocked and trying to make me look like the bad guy, making comments like, "You must be lonely here" and saying how little you care about how the block feature impacts me. I don't know why you do that.

Mod Note:
Please take this up in private. This thread is not the place for you to work out your differences with the site owner.

 

[MNblockhead]

I was surprised that there were something like six pages of folks with at least 24 blocks. But I guess I don't have a good feeling for how many really active posters we have. (Makes me wonder what some sort of network analysis on who blocked who would look like).

And now I'm wondering how many warnings per 1,000 posts or per year it takes someone to be an outlier.

[The data on both would be really cool to analyze....]

I'm actually surprised it isn't more. A lit ray of optimism about humanity! I think when you have a strong culture, with clear rules, and active moderation, people start policing themselves or move on to other places if that are more open to their behavior.

 

[Micah Sweet]

There's no social platform on the planet that tells you when somebody has blocked you and why.

Why is a little much, but I don't see an issue with knowing just the fact that someone blocked you.

 

[Umbran]

Why is a little much, but I don't see an issue with knowing just the fact that someone blocked you.

Well, among reasons - people who are victims of harassment or stalking frequently don't want to give the harrasser any clues whatsoever.

 

[FrogReaver]

High blocks are viewed negatively. Should high likes be viewed positively?

Maybe going by high likes instead of high blocks would be a better metric?

Maybe a like/block ratio would be an even better metric?

Anyways, just spitballing some ideas here.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Well, among reasons - people who are victims of harassment or stalking frequently don't want to give the harrasser any clues whatsoever.

Fair enough, but if you are truly villifying the person who was blocked like that, why are they allowed to stay on the site at all? Are we assuming that any time a poster chooses to block another poster, the one blocked must be a harassed? And if that's the assumption, shouldn't greater action be taken?

 

[FrogReaver]

I was surprised that there were something like six pages of folks with at least 24 blocks. But I guess I don't have a good feeling for how many really active posters we have. (Makes me wonder what some sort of network analysis on who blocked who would look like).

And now I'm wondering how many warnings per 1,000 posts or per year it takes someone to be an outlier.

[The data on both would be really cool to analyze....]

It’d also be interesting to see what the percent of total blocks are from people with no posts and between 1 and 50 or so posts, etc.

 

[Umbran]

High blocks are viewed negatively. Should high likes be viewed positively?

That's how we get clickbait. And cliques of people can drive raw number of likes without generating breadth of positive reaction.

Maybe going by high likes instead of high blocks would be a better metric.

All metrics should be chosen to answer a specific question. So... a better metric for what? What are you trying to measure, and for what purpose are you measuring it?

We don't generally consider number of blocks in day-to-day operations anyway. When I am moderating a post, I don't go look at the ignore report to see where someone sits.

 

[FrogReaver]

That's how we get clickbait. And cliques of people can drive raw number of likes without generating breadth of positive reaction.

But like, aren’t the same cliques more or less just as likely to block the same people as they are to like each others posts?

It seems that most arguments against using likes as such a metric apply just as easily to using blocks as one?

All metrics should be chosen to answer a specific question. So... a better metric for what? What are you trying to measure, and for what purpose are you measuring it?

For the same purpose high blocks get brought up in these conversations.

We don't generally consider number of blocks in day-to-day operations anyway. When I am moderating a post, I don't go look at the ignore report to see where someone sits.

That’s great! Though that leaves me a bit confused by the emphasis on them here.