It depends what browsing platform you’re using. If you use a browser like Safari or Explorer, you see a blank post, with the Ignorée’s name, and a blank text box with a message “This text is hidden because the poster is on your Ignore list.” (Or something like that.)
But if you’re browsing using Tapatalk on your iPhone, the Ignorée is disappeared.
There are only two situations where I’ve noticed that a post from an Ignorée is missing:
if the Ignorée is the OP: the thread title says who started the thread, but when I click on the thread, it starts with the first post in reply.
If the thread says it’s got a certain number of posts but the number of post is less than that: like if it says “20 posts” but there are only 19 displayed, I know someone’s been wished to the cornfield. I don’t know who, nor even where in the thread they posted.
I have ignored two posters in the time I’ve been on this board. It isn’t due to their views. It’s because they have quirks in their writing styles which I find aggravating.
One was a couple of years ago. I ended up taking that person off my ignore list a few months later.
I put the other person on my ignore list a few months ago and they are still on it.
I’ve got 11 people on my ignore list, but I think only 3 of those are currently active.
There are occasionally people that tip the annoy/useful scale well to the annoy side, and I decide my life is better off without them in it. It’s about the quality of my life. They just aren’t worth the bandwidth.
I don’t start my reading with the user name, frequently not looking at the name at all, unless something catches my attention and sends me back to check for it. So I can’t skip over a post, based on the poster.
Rarely, but yes (there are currently two). The only unforgivable sin is being consistently boring. Even the worst posters have the virtue of being an example to others. But boring people offer nothing. Generally, this means posting the same damn personal/political/ideological screed over and over with minor variations.
I have ten people on ignore. It isn’t because of their political opinions, or their views on religion or music or Star Wars. It’s because their personalities rub me the wrong way.
Of course, if someone quotes an ignored poster in a reply, you might see the ignored person’s contributions anyway. But I’ve found that most of the people I’m ignoring are rarely quoted. Isn’t that interesting?
I don’t ignore anyone and if the topic is engaging I’ll discuss it with anyone regardless of Pit history. Everyone is a person behind the screen and you never know maybe they’ve changed for the better? And even if they didn’t I want to know what people who think differently from me have to say about difficult subjects. I don’t want to hear what I already know or think I know.
Now, I’m kinda certain a few people have me on ignore and that doesn’t hurt my feelings.
Of course. It’s a part of how the Internet works. It’s how you control who has access to your mental space. It’s freedom of association, the online version.
Sure, you can just skip over posts, but why do that when there is a tool that makes that easier? It’s like choosing to avoid using a calculator for a complex sum, or refusing to Google something if you don’t know the answer. The tool exists. Why not use it?
I actually genuinely think that life would be a lot better for some posters if they’d just embrace the feature. I see them constantly getting into fights with a particular poster. Even if they are trying to ignore their posts, it clearly isn’t working for them.
It has also never once negatively affected my experience. If I care to read what someone says, I can do that. And if I find myself reading their posts more often and clicking gets annoying, I can always remove them from the list. It’s not permanent. It’s just a barrier to keep me from automatically reading their post, plus a great way to remember who I don’t want to interact with (And, online, that’s going to be more than the number of people I want to keep track of.)
As far as I’m concerned, it’s all upsides with no downsides.
That sounds like a helluva lot of work to me. When I see a thread started by someone who I don’t quite care for, I just scroll down. I’ve been here 17 years now, and it’s worked for me so far.
Oh, and I really wish the meme of “because you disagree with them” would go away. No, I don’t block someone because I disagree with them, any more than I cut someone out of my life because we disagree. Disagreement is normal and healthy. No one agrees with you on everything.
That just isn’t the line to stop associating with someone. The line is further out. There are multiple reasons, but none of them boil down to “we had a disagreement.” Trolling, bad behavior that isn’t moderated, profoundly unethical statements, refusing to apologize for hurting you or others, dishonesty–the list goes on.
I won’t give examples from this board, but I can from elsewhere online. In one forum, a poster said they would “deck” a poster if they ever said that to them in real life. The thing the poster had said? That it’s okay to be rude to a bigot. That guy was not only blocked but reported, and he lost his moderating position.
Another example that’s less violent: a poster wrote this entire explanation of how there was nothing wrong with scamming people. I even tried getting him to think of it as if it were his own grandma who was scammed, and not only wouldn’t he budge, but he started making fun of people for even caring about them. Sorry, but life is too short to put up with such people.
Finally, the one that is probably the most controversial: a poster who kept on getting into conversations where he’d argue he was the real victim because people wouldn’t let him misgender trans people without tons of downvotes. I tried many times to civilly explain his issues. And then actually contacted me twice via PM, claiming we really agreed on everything, twisting everything I said out of context. I was so angry at this guy that I was almost willing to break all the rules to tell him off. But I didn’t. I blocked him.
None of these were just disagreements. All of them crossed the line into something else. I feel no regret at all in choosing to block these people.
I confess it took me many years to realise that an “ignore list” was a real thing rather than just a metaphorical thing. When people said “they’re on my ignore list” I though they meant that they just paid their post no attention and scrolled right past.
Anyhow,no. It isn’t something I’d ever use. People can be arseholes in one thread and informative in the next and in any case “know thine enemy” is a pretty solid maxim. I’d rather expend the effort in reading or scrolling than run the risk of missing out on an interesting point.
And that requires keeping a list of all the posters you don’t care for in your head. You’ve just done more mental work than I ever have to.
As far as I can tell, all those who skip threads are just doing all the work I already do. You have to decide the poster isn’t worth listening to. You have to debate with yourself whether it’s worth making an exception this one time, or whether it’is worth removing them from your mental list.
The difference is that I don’t actually have to remember the list. I don’t have have to put out any effort to scroll past. I don’t have to stop myself from automatically reading the words in front of my face. I can literally forget that a poster even exists if I so choose.
