I can only speak from personal experience but I use my ignore list heavily and the reason is that I don’t want to inadvertently end up being nice to people who have been rude to me in the past. I usually stay in great debates and keep contact impersonal, but I have seen and responded to posts where people are asking for help or having a personal problem. And I don’t want to end up giving help to someone who has been rude to me 6 months ago but I forgot about it. I feel like a chump offering help to people who were rude to me when I was down.
So I mostly use the ignore function for that, to keep track of who I’d rather not have to deal with since they have been rude in the past. If I do not like the content of someone’s posts I just scroll over them.
Cunt Cunt Cunt Cunt Cunt Cunt Cunt Cunt Cunt Cunt Cunt Cunt Cunt Cunt Cunt Cunt Cunt Cunt Cunt Cunt Cunt Cunt Cunt Cunt Cunt Cunt Cunt Cunt Cunt Cunt Cunt Cunt Cunt Cunt Cunt Cunt Cunt Cunt Cunt Cunt Cunt Cunt Cunt Cunt Cunt Cunt Cunt Cunt Cunt Cunt Cunt Cunt Cunt Cunt Cunt Cunt Cunt Cunt Cunt Cunt
I’d say it’s more a matter of knowing which way to bet, when past experience is your guide to the likelihood of the person in question having anything uniquely worthwhile to add to a discussion.
Do you patiently hear out every crazy guy on the street drunk on Listerine? Do you stay up late for infomercials you might not have seen? Have you disabled your email account’s spam filter? Do you read every thread on the board?
My ignore list contains only one name, and he doesn’t seem to be around these days. In the time I read his posts before ignoring him, they annoyed me. There was a definite pattern of being irritated at his posts. Sure, any one might contain some pearl of wisdom, just as any of those emails that I never see might contain a genuine lucrative business offer, but I’ll go with the odds.
I don’t need to go out and check out each of Tori Amos’s albums to figure out she’s still doing the same basic thing that she was doing the last time I paid any attention, and I’m still not about to be a fan. I still occasionally hear about what she’s up to, I’ve even perused discussions about here career here on the SDMB. If the subject of Tori Amos happens to come up, I might even volunteer my opinion of her music (I’m pretty shitty with remembering music in general, and it’s been ten years or so since I was regularly subjected to hers specifically). Hell, if someone has a strong negative reaction to something, such that they avoid it, I figure they’ve actually paid enough attention to have formed that opinion.
Actually, what I got from your post is that you’re some kind of grudge-holding nutcase, who wants to punish people for their sins against you. Christ, I don’t even remember which motherfucker I called a jerkoff or which dipshit called me a jackass yesterday.
(Because most of you are interchangeable and worthless, but I digress.)
If there was a thread about disliking her music, I might provide my opinion (probably not, just because I really don’t post much, and can’t remember anything mildly interesting to say about Tori). But if I was musically competent enough to be able to express what it was that I disliked way back when, it’d certainly be a valid opinion. If it were anything resembling an in-depth discussion by fans, I’d steer clear. If it were a simple poll, I might chime in for a “dislike” data point.
I think Monkey with a Gun has a point, but s/he stretches it too far. Slapping someone on an ignore list just because you don’t like what they say in general is kinda ignorant, as sometimes even a person you violently disagree with can say something worth reading. If, on the other hand, you don’t like the way a poster interacts with you personally, the ignore list becomes the balm of Gilead for your weary soul.
I never used it before I burned out and bailed in 2004, and I planned not to use it again when I came back - but then I started getting the old frustration and anger back when I got involved in thread discussions, and wondering why in hell I did decide to come back. It was at that point I gave the ignore list a whirl, and surfing the SDMB has become a much more pleasurable experience. Truth be told it’s only five names long, but in my experience the ignore list has been worth it.
Oh, you read it, and that is some of the funniest shit I’ve read in weeks. I can just imagine the moment of realization… “Oh no… oh, god, no… I’ve been… kind.”
Ignore lists don’t appeal to me, but occasionally I think about keeping an Idiots List.
Sometimes I’ll read a post and think, What’s this person going on about? or They are really fixated on a strange point, and wonder if I need to re-read the entire thread to better understand the context.
Then I’ll remember… ohh, that’s the guy who believes all gods exist. Or, that’s the lady who got suspended for randomly shrieking at posters. Or, that’s the guy who rails against the income tax.
Then I feel justified in not trying to follow that person’s arguments. And for every idiot I remember, there are probably five I can’t keep track of. So, when I encounter a thread where someone defends an imbecilic notion page after page I consider starting an Idiot’s List so that I’ll remember not to worry about that poster’s opinions.
But I don’t have a list, and probably never will. The big reason is that sometimes I’ll think someone’s an idiot, and the next day they’ll post something precise, funny and insightful.
Also, I make the occasional idiotic post myself, and that inhibits my judgment reflex.
That would be a slick bit of programming. Imagine an individually-set up ratings system, where you could assign a symbol to a specific poster, reminding you that they are a loon, or a militant Freeper (redundant, I know), or whatever else you need to remember about them. Then you could scroll through threads, ignoring all posts that are marked with “Insane” tags, or whathaveyou.
I thought I was commenting on your exchange with Cat Whisperer.