I reserve the ignore function for a small handful of posters who are both very prolific and who I consider either insincere or so mentally ill that they aren’t worth engaging. But using it totally breaks my ability to subscribe to threads, because every time one of these posters participates in a thread–which is pretty much every thread, given my criteria–the email updates cease.
Am I doing it wrong? Is there a way to implement the ignore function so that it doesn’t break the subscribe function? Is there some user setting I can change?
Fundamental rule: how the SDMB software functions is how it has ever functioned, and how it will ever function, forever and ever (amen). Because it’s an outdated commercial bulletin board package that no one will upgrade and no one does tailored development for, and no one here is qualified to do tailored development for, and the few technical folks behind the scenes officially have better things to do than tinker with this particular borderline-money-losing accessory* to the money-making (hopefully) Chicago Reader newspaper.
If you hit the “ignore” function and it kills the threads, That’s How It’s Supposed To Work.
*All statements regarding finances are entirely speculative
Assuming I’m not one of those on your ignore list…you aren’t doing it wrong and that seems to be how it works. I’ve only used the ignore feature once since I started with this board, and that’s exactly how it worked for me as well. I don’t think there is any user setting you can change to ‘fix’ the issue, since I think it’s actually part of how the board software works (i.e. it’s a feature, not a bug). Basically, I just do ignore the old fashioned way…if I don’t want to read what someone has to say in a given thread I just scroll past instead of try and use ignore. YMMV.
I do that too. But I find that if I don’t put some people on ignore, I will waste my time reading and responding to them only to learn anew why I shouldn’t have wasted my time. Frankly, it tends to be people with less-than-memorable usernames.
I hadn’t checked whether it shows in the list. As I look at it now, my list does look incomplete, so it may be that it removes them.
It doesn’t actually stop the notifications, it just does not notify you when the next poster is someone you have on ignore. It will start up again if you visit the board and then someone not on your list posts.
So, you have Joe Blow on ignore, but not Sam Ham. If Joe Blow posts you won’t get a notification. But if you are reading another thread (which keeps the notifications active) and Sam Ham posts, you’ll get that one.
I assume it’s just information stored in your account on the server, just like your subscribed threads list. Here’s how I assume the workflow goes:
[ol]
[li]Post has been made to thread.[/li][li]If someone is subscribed to this thread, cue up a notification.[/li][li]When the email is scheduled to be sent, temporarily disable further email notifications to that thread. (until the user comes back)[/li][li]Check and see if any poster in the notifications is on your ignore list. If so, delete email/notification.[/li][li]If all is well, send email.[/li][/ol]
The way to fix it would be to put Number 3 after number 4. But, of course, we can’t do that, since no one can alter the software.
The alternative would be to use a browser extension to implement the ignore feature. But this would not work on emails, since they are separate. So you’d get notifications from ignored users.
The onlyworkaround I can think of is to check into the website every so often, so that all email notifications get reactivated. This could be automated, but it would take something beyond a typical script like I like to create. I’d probably suggest looking for a program that can check a web page for updates and store said updates. Then schedule it in a way that works with how often you get email notifications.
Assuming you don’t mind leaving your computer on. Heck, I do know a Firefox addon that you can schedule to refresh a page every so often. But you’d have to always leave a tab for the SDMB open and always keep Firefox running.
