D&D 5E No Magic Shops!

[Maxperson]

Which is more important, your right to information or their right to privacy?

If you want to talk about the right to privacy, they have no right to privacy on a forum like this. This isn't about the right to privacy or the right to information. This is about it not being detrimental to their enjoyment of the website for me to view their posts, but it absolutely being detrimental to my enjoyment to be forced to ignore them. If I view their posts, and even if I respond to the posts, there is no real interaction between the blocking individual and myself. The interaction due to that quote is between myself and those who can see it.

 

[Guest 6801328]

If you want to talk about the right to privacy, they have no right to privacy on a forum like this. This isn't about the right to privacy or the right to information. This is about it not being detrimental to their enjoyment of the website for me to view their posts, but it absolutely being detrimental to my enjoyment to be forced to ignore them. If I view their posts, and even if I respond to the posts, there is no real interaction between the blocking individual and myself. The interaction due to that quote is between myself and those who can see it.

Honestly I think the blocking feature should be removed, even though I do use it on occasion.

Any behavior that crosses the line of harassment or offensiveness should be dealt with by moderators. (If not, that's a different problem.) Which means that blocking shouldn't be useful for anything other than "I don't want to have to read what person X writes." And that doesn't strike me as a particularly important reason. At least, not if it's going to mess up the web site for the person who doesn't have any say in being blocked.

Or maybe the feature could just color-code, or hide behind a /spoiler tag, posts from the people you don't like, to help remind you that your tender eyes may be offended by the sight of their words?

 

[Ovinomancer]

Relax dude. I didn't say you behaved badly. You even said you were just testing and wouldn't do it again. All I said was that it was one of those cheats you two had been discussing. Nothing more.

If people here stopped reading into what I say and asked when the don't understand something, they wouldn't go so badly wrong so often when replying to me. I don't play games and have hidden messages and/or agendas when I post. I'm very straight forward.

Physician, heal thyself. :winkgun:

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Forced? No. But your block would, it seems, have perhaps-unintended knock-on effects; and that's where the issue lies.

If, say, one of you or I were to block the other and the only effect was that neither of us could see what the other had written (unless a third party had quoted one of our posts in theirs) then it would, I think, be working as intended.

But it seems to do more than that: it messes up the notification linking when we've both been active in the same thread (which is annoying but not earth-shattering), and it blocks us from seeing entire threads just because the other one happened to start said thread (which IMO is complete overkill).

The one thing I'd like to see, knowing that I'll never block anyone, is some sort of notification telling me I've been blocked by someone else...preferably with a reason attached, that the blocker would have to type in as part of the blocking process.

Sure. I haven’t ever argued the current block system is great/sans bugs.

This is wrong. 1. I want to see those posts. 2. Against my will, I cannot. Therefore, I am being forced to ignore them. You may believe that they have the right to force me, but it is in fact forced. Not only that, but my viewing their posts is not detrimental to their enjoyment of the website.

Being blocked from doing something isn’t the same as being forced to do something, and you haven’t any right to see anyone’s posts.

 

[Maxperson]

Being blocked from doing something isn’t the same as being forced to do something, and you haven’t any right to see anyone’s posts.

The bold part is impossible without using force. Using force to prevent me from doing something automatically equals forcing me to do something else. That's fact. Further, I have more right to see someone's posts on a forum of this type than they have to keep it secret. They have no right to privacy.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

The bold part is impossible without using force.

You have it backward.

Using force to prevent me from doing something automatically equals forcing me to do something else. That's fact.

That’s false. If you try to come into my home, and I bar your entry by locking my door, I am not forcing you to do anything. You can stand there, or go anywhere else you want. You can’t come in anyway.

Further, I have more right to see someone's posts on a forum of this type than they have to keep it secret. They have no right to privacy.

No, you just feel entitled to it in spite of having no particular right to it. That’s your problem, not anyone else’s.

And the forum, literally by virtue of having a block function, makes it so that specifically in this space, they have the right to bar you from interacting with them in any way, including seeing their posts (bugs aside), and you have no right to view or otherwise interact with someone who has blocked you.

Just like if this were a building, and it had rooms with locks, and the management allowed people to say, “frank can’t come into this room while I’m using it” as a specific policy, Frank would have no recourse when barred from entering a room.

 

[Charlaquin]

Well, now we’re just kebitzing about the definition of “force.”

 

[FrogReaver]

...you haven’t any right to see anyone’s posts.

I think user's shouldn't have any ability to impact any other user. I'm not arguing that I have a right to see their posts, as I believe it's the owner/moderators right to deny me that privilege any time they see fit. Instead I'm arguing that you as a user shouldn't have the right to deny me the privilege of seeing anything on a public forum style website.

Further, you don't actually have the means of preventing me from seeing your posts. All you actually have is the ability to prevent me from seeing your posts while I'm logged in under my username. So what you are actually arguing for is just the ability to inconvenience me. That's quite eye-opening.

 

[Maxperson]

That’s false. If you try to come into my home, and I bar your entry by locking my door, I am not forcing you to do anything.

It seems that you don't understand what force is. If you are barring my entry, you are using force to keep me from entering.

You can stand there, or go anywhere else you want. You can’t come in anyway.

If I leave rather than enter your house as I tried to do, you forced me to go away.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

I think user's shouldn't have any ability to impact any other user. I'm not arguing that I have a right to see their posts, as I believe it's the owner/moderators right to deny me that privilege any time they see fit. Instead I'm arguing that you as a user shouldn't have the right to deny me the privilege of seeing anything on a public forum style website.

Further, you don't actually have the means of preventing me from seeing your posts. All you actually have is the ability to prevent me from seeing your posts while I'm logged in under my username. So what you are actually arguing for is just the ability to inconvenience me. That's quite eye-opening.

No, what I am arguing for is a perfectly normal block function. You can log out and view my posts if you’re weird or angry or whatever enough to do so, but you can’t @, quote, or otherwise interact, and you have to go out of your way to a degree that the vast majority of people just aren’t going to do in order to see my activity. That part of blocking is working fine. It doesn’t have to be perfect to work.

It seems that you don't understand what force is. If you are barring my entry, you are using force to keep me from entering.

No, Locked doors aren’t force, unless they keep someone in without heir consent. Circumventing such a door is force.

If I leave rather than enter your house as I tried to do, you forced me to go away.

No, I barred one of many options. I would only have forced you to go away if I had used physical force, the threat of same, threat of police force, etc to make you specifically leave. Tangentially, I’d be within my rights to do so in the actual case of you being at the door to my home and refusing to leave when asked, but no metaphor is perfect. Even then, force doesn’t come into play until I go further than barring your way.

But Internet forums aren’t like real life spaces in some important ways. For one, in real life, if I find Bob obnoxious, and I ask Bob to leave me alone, all normal people in the world know that Bob should just leave me alone. Trying to stand near me so he can hear what I say, and then have a conversation with the people around me about what I say while technically not talking to me would incredibly creepy, invasive, and if a Bob persisted in that after being asked to stop, force might very well come into play. But using the social contract and general social norms to stop Bob from interacting with me isn’t a use of force, obviously.

Online, social cues break down. Half the time people don’t even look at user names while reading posts, and memories are short, so even with all parties acting in good faith, a request to leave me alone is rarely going to work on an Internet forum.

And frankly, I’ve blocked people on this website before because I found them creepy, or because their argumentative style was completely and consistently dishonest, disruptive, and abusive while staying within the technical boundaries of the rules, etc. I don’t expect the mods to ban everyone who is dishonest or creepy. The block function is right there.

The ignore function wasn’t doing its job. Morris, IIRC, talked about it when he announced the change.

I get that it has bugs, and that you hate it, but the idea that it’s an example of force is just patently absurd nonsense.