We really need the option to block users

[AnnaNotherOne]

I know MNHQ for some reason are adamant that this isn’t something that’s necessary but I strongly disagree.

There are so many posters who never ever add anything to a conversation and I would appreciate being able to screen their comments out completely. One poster in particular has been getting right on my tits lately, constantly calling every poster “girl”. It’s irritating and patronising and I don’t want to see it.

When will this be revisited and implemented?

How would they know?

some people NC regularly anyway

I've just realised I've been under the same username for more than two years 😱

No, it hasn’t. How is it “misuse” to curate your social media to be what you want?

To be fair, while I’m normally on the same page with @C8H10N4O2 , it can be really difficult to ignore a persistent troublemaker.

They wouldn't know for sure, but the threads would be full of people speculating and assuming, even more than now, because there's an incentive for inflammatory types to namechange all the time and see what they can get away with.

Totally agree.

I genuinely think that if you’re that bothered by someone name changing you need to step away for a bit, if it’s got to the point you’d sit and block people to work out who they are.

It absolutely does have an impact on people's site use. It shuts down any real discussion of controversial issues and allows some very obviously mentally ill people to create their own echo chamber divorced from reality. Please god save us from becoming Reddit!

No, it doesn’t. I wasn’t actually just talking about Reddit, I was talking about tattle. You can mute someone and you just don’t see their posts, unless you click on them and opt to view them. That doesn’t shut down discussion.

I used to be on a really small parenting site and it didn't affect things at all, you just didn't see the person's messages.

I think being a bit irritated by people occasionally is good for the soul. I would hate it if MNHQ did this - everywhere else is an echo chamber. People should hear views they disagree with.

Although I do think Reform played MN like a fiddle, flooding the site, turning an analysis of posts into a “Mumsnet backs Reform” news story and then all buggering off

They’re still here sadly

God save us from becoming Tattle too.

If you want Tattle go to Tattle.

If you want Reddit, go to Reddit

I want Mumsnet.

Each site has it's own feel. I go elsewhere when I want something different.

(though I'm surprised they have that feature on Tattle, that seems a departure. They were once the platform for very unfettered free speech. People went there for things you couldn't say elsewhere. It's also has a reputation for being the site that will viciously critique, highlight and gossip about every slice of an influencer or celebrities life. But now the users get selective free speech?)

There have been dozens of threads on here complaining about how aggressive and nasty things have become over the last few years. I’ve been here for about 18 years and can definitely see a move away from so-called ‘robust’ debate to plain old rudeness and, even more annoyingly, rage bait type comments. There are a few usernames I recognise time and again and I try to ignore them because I KNOW they will wind me up. And of course the facility for frequent name changes means that anyone can fly under the radar. I think there’s a lot to be said for growing a thicker skin and remembering that you’re not confiding in your best friend. I am ridiculously sensitive and sometimes when another poster has said something very mean spirited to me or has obviously deliberately misconstrued my comment just to make me feel shit, I take it personally and mull over it for far too long. But I usually give myself a shake and remember that they don’t know me and no matter how personal it seems, it just isn’t. By going onto a talk forum, we are letting thousands of people into our personal (cyber) space and most of them are people we wouldn’t have anything to do with in real life. Some of them are lovely and some of them are arseholes. The best way to block the ones you don’t like is to ignore them and not to give them the attention they pathetically crave.

It’s absolutely not necessary. If you want a sanitised super safe space where you don’t even have to read things by people that annoy you, MN obviously isn’t for you. A little annoyance in life isn’t a bad thing. Learning to manage it without it ruining your day is a life skill.

We talk about resilience in children getting worse but no wonder it is when even the adults in their lives feel the need to create their own echo chambers everywhere they go in order to avoid a little frustration and a bit of extra scrolling. There are enough on social media already because of the way the algorithms push content, we really don’t need to create more by allowing self-selected blocking of opinions on an anonymous forum where genuinely offensive and obscene content is already deleted for you when reported.

I'm not bothered by someone name-changing. I do it all the time and think it's a good thing.

If MN moves away from being a site where you can post truthful details about your life anonymously, over the course of decades, with no way anyone can link up your posts to piece together who you are
To
Becoming a site where anyone can link up your posts and piece together who you are and everything you've ever said

Then it will fundamentally change the nature of the site, who will post, who will come looking for posters, who feels they have to change all their details every time they post to try and remain anonymous, because the truly anonymous name-change function no longer exists.

If people want to change the site from the first to the second, then that's a discussion worth having, but I'm sure many people won't post in the same way they do now.

I would really like this feature - to mute or block a user and their contributions to a thread.

It seems odd that it doesn't already exist.

Yes, I’ve seen formerly vibrant subs destroyed by tactical block use all over a thread. I’ve left more than one sub which has fallen victim to this as it doesn’t only affect the blocker, it distorts the discussion for everyone.

There are precious few places left where discussion is not distorted in this way. What is left of MN would become just another tedious echo chamber.

I agree we all have posters which we find just annoying but honestly I agree with @Funnywonder downthread - just ignore them and report where needed and hide individual threads if someone is really getting up your nose but not breaching guidelines.

The very feature which keeps people here is the discussion. The forum doesn’t offer any snazzy features (or even non snazzy features like threading). Cripple the discussion and we all lose out because its too much trouble for some to skim past posts they don’t want to read.

There are no shortage of places where private echo chambers can be created, MN would be the worse for following that pattern but with less features when for many of us that is its primary offering.

Ouch. I normally really like your posts, but that one was just rude and personal and if I missed some provocation then apologies.

I agree broadly with you that a block function isn’t best but - tbh those sorts of posts are why some want it.

I’d prefer to see trolls and posters posting in bad faith dealt with swiftly. Sometimes I’ve reported a poster and it’s taken a while to deal with it and in the meantime threads dissolve into chaos. This is where I’ve got some sympathy with the argument for blocking. I don’t think it would work here but it is horrible whe posters just use MN to insult and kick you effectively.

I would value a block feature, but I also understand why others wouldn't and why it hasn't been introduced. My answer when the crazy people on here get too much is to take a break from mumsnet altogether for a wee while. I always come back, but usually in a better headspace. Not being able to deal with some of the idiocy that crops up is usually more because I am in a bad place rather than anything else, it's a sign I need to get outside for a bit!

Its factually accurate - the PP dismissed risks victims of DV being pursued as “vanishingly slim” and subordinate to her own convenience (convenience not need). I think that is disgusting on what is supposed to be women centred support site.

They then made it clear both that they don’t understand potential effects of blocking but simply don’t care - their own convenience is primary.

I honestly don’t see my post as rude - just a factual rebuttal.

There is a plethora of sites where one can curate a nice little bubble of people who agree with you. Looking back over the development of discussion based sites I think blocking is one of the most pernicious features of many - that wouldn’t have been my view 20 years ago but it absolutely is now. There are arseholes in the world, part of life is learning to deal with them and ignore them. There are features to enable hiding of particular threads and topics - those don’t affect the experience of other users in the way that blocking does.

On reflection, rather than an individual block, can we have a “Cancel the cheque” feature which removes all of the responses to an Op that completely ignore the fact the conversation has significantly moved on (including valuable information from the Op which changes things)? Maybe even a filter to stop them being posted in the first place?

That would then stop the snarky, but somewhat understandable “read the thread” comments (gone are the days of a simple “RTFT” response…) which get people’s backs up and make conflict more likely, while also making it a more enjoyable reading experience for all involved. Compromise

I know this is completely unfeasible but a woman can dream

What I really don’t understand (or believe) are the confused and confusing claims that posters and MNHQ always make against the block feature. Have they never been anywhere online outside Mumsnet, ever? Are they still living in the stone ages? Have they truly never used... I don't know... Facebook, at the very least? Why the faux‑naivety about how a simple block function works on a website?

The only legitimate argument against a block feature, given the very useful namechange USP here, is that it would make it easier to spot when multiple usernames belong to the same poster, if blocking a username automatically blocks the entire account. But the obvious solution would be the ability to only block the username in question, and not have that automatically block the whole account. If that can’t be done, then that’s a reasonable reason not to implement blocking here.

All the other reasons excuses against a block feature are simply odd, unbelievably uninformed and, frankly, ridiculous.

Maybe they just don’t want a site where posters only encounter views they agree with? Maybe it’s in the nature of their vision for the site that all views are expressed? As you say, you have the rest of the internet if you want to block people