Okay, can we talk about this rationally? Hide Poster Option

I always found nemeses fascinating....in fiction at least and somehow MN is not quite the same as RL.

But then you have to read them first.

I really don't think that people would just click Hide willy-nilly- who could be arsed? You'd save it for the very occasional persistently irritating bugbear types. I've been here a good while now, and I can only think of two or three who I'd want to use it with. Even then, frankly, I'd probably relent just so I could torment myself.

If HQ made it a deletable offence to gloat about hiding people, I dont see why anybody would ever need know. Other sites have this as standard, and it doesn't cause any major problems.

Yeah, but Turnip its great when you can show them up concerning their views and when they start back tracking, whoah victory dance!

Not that everyone feels in a position to do this, I know sometimes things are still too raw. Maybe I need to keep my fingers still from waving over the i-pad but I just hate it when I have hid a post accidentally, hiding posters would be awful. Maybe if it was not instant and you had to log in to do it, this would be OK.

Yes please to hide post/poster. What Tee said. What BOF said.

To all who say I don't need it, I'm ice cool mature me Fine. Good for you. Even if the hide button is there (please!) you won't be obliged to use it. In exactly the same way that you say us lesser mortals aren't obliged to reply to goat/dy twats. Surely that makes everyone happy

I don't think it's a good idea then. Someone might be a complete arse on one thread ever, you might see them for the first time on that thread and hide them on the basis of that, when actually normally they are a good poster but you'd never know.
Maybe an option to hide certain posts would be more practical? Like you can on your dreaded Facebook timeline?

Look, this 'you just need a bit of self-control' stuff is all very well, but sometimes you get your back put up by certain posters because you have had particular horrible experiences that they trigger.

Suppose you've been a victim of DV and somebody regularly posts trivialising or disbelieving other people who post about it, suppose you were bullied at school for not having the right clothes and somebody regularly sneers at people for wearing the wrong shoes or whatever, suppose you're insecure about your lack of education and someone makes a habit of picking up spelling and grammar mistakes in posts.
Being able to rise above it all is great and kudos to those of you that always can, but sometimes that is a fairly privileged position to be in.

Agreeing that the hide poster option worked wonderfully on Delphiforums. It made not rising to button pushing of the goady variety so much easier.

Can we call it a Twat Zapper?!

Yes, Orange. It would be a (reversible) Twat Zapper.

Tee can you clarify what you mean by a hide poster option please? I think I've got the wrong end of the stick
I assumed you meant a hide poster option on a specific thread, so say if I was being a dick on this one you could choose to hide all of my very important posts, but reading through everyone else's replies they seem to suggest that it would just hide all of my posts on any thread?

Yes please to hide poster.

Then when someone really doesn't care about a topic, but feels the need to keep repeatedly telling us they don't really care about a topic, we can hide them.

Its in their own interests. Best not to read it at all, than spend a whole thread going but who does that....Really????

It doesn't leave holes in threads, except ones that you actually want. I don't mind engaging with anyone who disagrees with me. That doesn't mean that it wouldn't be better for my blood pressure to let my eyes easily glide past the, what, two or three posters (?) out of thousands whom I know make me want to claw my eyes out

Everyone has a right to their opinions, and in some cases personalities, and I don't have to like them. But I don't have to engage or read or respond either. I don't need a button to do that. I just need a bit of self control.

Yep, succinctly put. It's the infantilising that's so unattractive about 'hide'. We aren't toddlers.

Presumably it will only work on the name not the identity, so anyone who thinks they've been hidden and doesn't like it could just change their name to an obvious variant (or by adding the dreaded numerals at the end) and be unhidden again. I can see that being even more blood-pressure-threatening than being goaded in the first place. OTOH you might think that anyone prepared to do that sort of thing should just be banned.

' I sometimes wish I had a button to hide posters from each other. You know when a thread is being horrifically derailed because two posters are having a private spat?'

See, my brother reported that one of the best things about the ignore button for the site he originally made it for was that people who put each other's backs up could now ignore each other so the annoying arguments between two posters with issues with each other decreased.

I think that it's time to revisit the arguments for this again: the site is much bigger and full of wankers than it used to be, and there is a lot of unnecessary conflict. Given that civilian moderators have been discounted, and that the community team's workload is practically Dickensian, don't you think that anything which will reduce personal attacks and thus the need for deletions would be a good thing?

I understand that Justine is worried that threads "won't make sense", but given that a) people mostly talk shite anyway and fly off-topic (eg Larkers in the face of Po-some OPs etc); and b) the hide button would be individually activated by choice and not compulsory, I don't think this argument really holds water.

There are many posters mature enough to never need to shield themselves from the profoundly irritating, and some folk are naturally imbued with a zen-like calm in the face of fucknuggetry, but for the rest of us, please give us the option to simply never have to read the posts of people we know invariably get on our last nerve.

I am convinced that spats will reduce; people will participate more widely and constructively in threads, instead of having to hide them once their nemesis appears; goading will become much less sustained; and the bill to MNHQ for gin at weekends will be slashed to pre-2005 levels.

What's not to like?

If it works as Tunip described, I really can't see the issue?! I think most people would use it on a thread by thread basis rather than a blanket hide for one poster across the whole site. And surely if someone is goading you, or saying stupid things, or deliberately misunderstanding things then it's better to ignore them than risk replying and causing a bunfight.

I like to do searches on the goaders. If they have a past, they usually have a vested interest which gives them a particular outlook. If there is no past, (so mysterious!) I wonder why they have chosen to comment on this one issue. Then the name of the game is to weedle out their experiences, through very clever, polite questioning, so you can ponder why they are like what they are. An advanced form of people watching.

I am so going to have to name change after this! .