Please consider this comprehensive ignore system add-in to new VBulletin

I posted this during the lost weekend, so that’s why this might look familiar.

I would find this add-on useful primarily for the ignore thread functionality. I’d like to be able to keep threads I’m not interested in, especially ones with inadequately descriptive titles that I keep reopening, from coming up.

The other features could be pretty useful as well. I can see this reducing the need to ban new users that many label as trolls but possibly simply are people with genuine unpopular opinions. Complainers can more comprehensively ignore the poster that offends them so, and the admins need not ban the new poster.

But as I said, I primarily just want the ability to ignore threads I’m not interested in, especially ones with shitty titles that I end up opening multiple times before remembering what it’s about. I would certainly settle for just that feature, and if an add-on with only that feature had come up in my search I would recommended it instead of this one.

Perhaps when/if the board becomes stable this addon can be considered.

I remember posting in agreement. Ignore functions such as these serve functions beyond simple huffiness with someone who called you a nasty word.

Being able to ignore whole threads that you know will persist a while, but you also know you will never open or contribute to seems like a great idea to me. What would be the downside?

Any mods/admins care to comment on this add-in? Note that it’s described as ‘supported’ although I cannot precisely say what that means, i.e supported by vBulletin or just the coder who made it or what.

The entire concept of “Ignores” are anathema to the entire purpose of the SDMB which is to Fight Ignorance. Having a function where large sets of users are completely unaware of the other activities and topics at hand would promote cliquishness and leave many users responding to discussions without a full understanding of the landscape. No one is going to be interested in all the topics at hand, but it helps to create understanding and a well rounded view of the community when you see and consider them however briefly.

If there’s a ongoing problem with poorly titled threads that ruin your experience that’s an issue for the Moderators to address. It’s a rule that thread titles be descriptive. Adding a function ripe for abuse to deal with a issue of simple moderation is a vast overreaction.

Report them and ask for the thread title to be changed.

I disagree - I think it’s just an opposite number for bookmarking and subscribing - some threads you want to see again and again, others, once was too often. Discernment isn’t ignorance.

I agree with Mangetout. If we were discussing a way to list only the topics we select to see, you’d have a point. But since the default is to see a topic unless you’ve actively decided you don’t want to, I don’t have a problem.

I do so to the point that the mods are probably tired of hearing from me. Not only don’t they always change the title (for whatever reason, I can never know why), but I’d also simply like to zap threads, even those with decent titles, that are popular enough to to come up frequently that I have no interest in.

  1. I’m not going to open the threads anyway that I’d ignore (or at least I’ll only open it for a second before I realize it’s that damn one that keeps coming up that I don’t care about)
  2. If anything, being able to comprehensibly ignore a user will widen the community. Currently, whenever a new poster comes in that starts any threads that are provocative in the least, they are hounded away as trolls. Perhaps with this system, the witch-hunters can be told to either man up and handle it like a big boy, or comprehensibly ignore the person and STFU. Meanwhile, the adults of the board can enjoy a community that isn’t a near echo-chamber of similar views.

So you want people to ignore people they don’t agree with as opposed to debating with them. How very enlightened. :rolleyes:

No, I want people to ignore them as opposed to them being banned as trolls. So they remain members. So they CAN be debated with, at least by other members.

Did you bother to read my post?

Is there some rampant troll banning spree going on that I’m not privy to? It’s a solution in search of a problem I’m afraid.

A problem that you are unaware of perhaps, which does not mean it’s not there.

I don’t quite understand what the exact problem is. An example or two would clear things up. If you’d rather not post actual thread titles, make up some similar ones.

Well, any thread might be one I simply don’t have interest in, but is popular so it keeps popping to the top of the forum.

Some are complaining about about too many Palin threads, with this add-on they could ignore those threads and they’ll never see them again.

This is not exactly a recent example, but when ‘Survivor’ first started there was like ten threads about the show in CS. Not a watcher of the show, I would have liked to drop them off my list of threads.

It’s mostly just a matter of tuning the view to better match what I want to see. It’s not a huge problem, just a desired improvement.

Yeah. That.

I’ll bump this now that the board seems to be pretty stable, as far as I can tell.

Any word from admins or mods whether this may be considered?

I’ll bump this again.

Any word from admins or mods whether this may be considered?

Maybe it’s already secretly installed and they’re Ignoring this thread. Trippy!

The system is much the same – and, I do believe, the same version number – as when this was first proposed. So you see that changes are not something that happens here all the time, or even very often.

“Add-ons” in the vB vernacular = hacks. Over the history of the Dope we tend to not get very far from plain ol’ vanilla – it’s too much trouble to put stuff on only to lose it if/when the system crashes or updates. That’s been Jerry’s philosophy for as long as I’ve been here and I don’t see it changing. If it does we’ll let you know.