# Is there anyway to tell how many people have put a person on ignore?



## maggot (Feb 23, 2008)

When I see a post I'd rather not read, I want to put the user into the ignore bin.  But then I think, "maybe this is a good poster on a bad day."  The only way to figure this out is to search for other posts by the same user, and then figure out if they should be ignored.

But what if I could figure out how many other people decided to ignore this user.  That would mean I wouldn't have to read a bunch of posts that might have similar bad content, but instead I could use the collective consciousness of ENWorld to help decide.  I would read a few posts to be sure, but if no one is ignoring this user, it is probably just a bad day for him/her.

Also, I would be curious if people are ignoring me (not specific people, but an aggregate) to see if I should tone it down a notch.

On the other hand, I could see some users trying to get their ignore count high.

But anyway, is it possible?


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## Henry (Feb 23, 2008)

Three thoughts on this:

1) There's no way to tell how many people have ignored a person, to my knowledge.

2) Chances are if someone has been able to cause enough angst to cause more than a handful of people to ignore them, then they are no longer a member of this forum, because the Moderators have kicked them already.

3) If a person feels they have to worry about toning it down a notch, then the fact that they're aware of it may be important in and of itself. We have always said, _"If you have to worry if a post is over the line or not, then it's safer not to post it."_


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## Michael Morris (Feb 23, 2008)

Two thoughts.

1)Although not a feature of vbulletin, it is programattically possible. The ignore list is stored in the database after all.

2) Experience has taught me that disruptive types tend to wear signs of their disruption like a badge of honor.  I fear letting such people see how many people they've been ignored by will only encourage them.


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## maggot (Feb 24, 2008)

Henry said:
			
		

> 2) Chances are if someone has been able to cause enough angst to cause more than a handful of people to ignore them, then they are no longer a member of this forum, because the Moderators have kicked them already.




I wish this was true, then I would have no use for the ignore feature at all.

Thanks for the replies.


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## moritheil (Feb 24, 2008)

I would also argue against its desirability, though for slightly different reasons: reading others' opinions discourages people from forming their own opinions and actually judging a poster on his or her own posts.  It is too easy for things to snowball one way or another as is; this would just make it easier.


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## Arnwyn (Feb 25, 2008)

I'd love something like this.

Of course, I'd also love it if I could see the number of times a poster has been "spoken to" by the mods, the number of times a poster has been booted from a thread, as well as the number of times a poster has been temp-banned (ye olde "3 day vacation"). [Needless to say, I'm not holding my breath!]

(While I wish Henry's #2 were true, my own little unofficial tally of the above shows that this is so clearly _not_ the case.)


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## LightPhoenix (Feb 26, 2008)

Obligatory joke about thread missing poster, and so on, so forth...



			
				moritheil said:
			
		

> I would also argue against its desirability, though for slightly different reasons: reading others' opinions discourages people from forming their own opinions and actually judging a poster on his or her own posts.  It is too easy for things to snowball one way or another as is; this would just make it easier.




This is pretty much why I'm against it as well.  It doesn't really _tell_ you anything.  With regards to warning, I'm sure most of us have been spoken to by the mods at least once - sometimes we have bad days, sometimes we get a little too passionate, sometimes we just make mistakes.  It's the same but worse with Ignore.  Maybe you are the most polite person, but you get put on ignore because you don't have the same viewpoint as someone else.  Maybe someone doesn't like your alias.  Maybe you offend someone once and they're heavy on the trigger.  Who knows, who cares?

On the other hand, it sets up all sorts of connotations.  Not only that, but it can be used maliciously as well.  Michael Morris said a very true statement - there are people who get their kicks trolling, and knowing this information rewards that, rather than penalizes it.  It may also be used as a weapon in debate or out.  Say I don't like Piratecat (I do, for real!  ), so I round up a posse and mass ignore him.  Suddenly he's labelled as a disruptive, and it really isn't him, but me that's responsible.  That's added mod/admin burden as they have to sort it out.

I don't think it's a _bad_ idea - bad behavior in real life is moderated in exactly this way.  However, in real life you can't be anonymous, and anonymity breeds people who don't care about being disruptive or rude.  There's no social consequence for it.  That's why it wouldn't work here - most of us have never met more than one or two others.


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## Lanefan (Feb 26, 2008)

I just want to know who's ignoring me, so I don't waste time replying to their posts. 

Lanefan


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## Arnwyn (Feb 26, 2008)

LightPhoenix said:
			
		

> With regards to warning, I'm sure most of us have been spoken to by the mods at least once -



Maybe, but I personally doubt it. I think there's a considerable number who've never had a moderator warning.

You do certainly make good points, though.


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## LightPhoenix (Feb 27, 2008)

Arnwyn said:
			
		

> Maybe, but I personally doubt it. I think there's a considerable number who've never had a moderator warning.
> 
> You do certainly make good points, though.




Okay, maybe I'm just a punk.


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