Indeed. Either both options should be available, or neither. Preferably neither, IMO.
Who knew there was such a feature?? Not moi. After 6+ years here, I really ought to acquaint myself with its features. (Not that I’d use it.)
Hey, what’s the calendar and how come I don’t have permission to use it?
A sentiment expressed by several previous posters. What are these stress levels? Why do they exist in you? What do they say, more about you than the poster whom you exclude?
If you place yourself on your ignore list, do you vanish in a puff of smoke?
The ignore list feature would be a lot more popular if users could publicize it to show certain other people just how no-account they are, so there.
What I might be tempted to use is a “topic ignore” list. If certain keywords came up, the thread would automatically not appear on my forum listing. It would certainly make for a more relaxing experience.
Damned interesting question. I won’t be testing it out, myself.
Another interesting proposition, but it doesn’t solve the problem of the existence of the “ignore” list in the first place.
What I might be tempted to use is a “topic ignore” list. If certain keywords came up, the thread would automatically not appear on my forum listing. It would certainly make for a more relaxing experience.
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Also an interesting idea. But what is this preoccupation with finding these boards “relaxing”? Why do people want to reduce, rather than increase, their level of intellectual stimulation?
Tried it, you can’t do it, “Sorry, you can not add yourself to your own ignore list.”, I was hoping to open a hole it the space time continuum 
I don’t agree. I’ve been tempted to ignore people because their posts are consistantly uninformative, nonsensical, poorly spelt/formatted or deliberately provocative (tiresomely so, not provocative to inspire discussion but provocative to inspire hostility and gain attention) but never have I been tempted to ignore someone for simply having an opinion that I disagree with. One poster who has since been banned annoyed me because the posts they made were always ridiculous in the extreme and I strongly suspected that person of being a troll - but in that case, like a car wreck, I found I couldn’t look away so I never actually made use of the ignore list (though I did a little dance of celebration when the banning finally occurred). On another site, I have a user in my ignore list. I added her because she insulted one of my friends in a most inappropriate place and manner, and the mods on the site did not choose to intervene. I decided that I didn’t care to interact with her in any way after that - I suppose you could call it “disagreeing with her opinion” but it was her manners that I found most disagreeable.
Try microwaving instant coffee or putting a mirror on a copy machine.
Unfunny attempts at humor in GQ are why I use it.
Before I left on hiatus, I had one Doper in my ignore list; a person who quite literally never had anything to say that was not, in my view, aggressively ignorant and trolly. He/she never had anything to offer to any discussion but noise, and I finally realized that responding them was like pegging BBs at an oncoming tank; just wastes your time and annoys the pig.
Since I’ve returned, I’ve added several people. My criterion anymore is someone who is more interested in lowering the tone of a conversation than in participating civilly, in good faith. I find myself easily drawn into defensive tone mirroring with these Dopers, and I don’t want to go there anymore. So if, in order to respond to a person, I have to ignore a willfully insulting tone, I’ve decided I don’t have the emotional energy to devote to that. So lately when I come across someone who seems bent on turning a discussion into an argument, if it seems like it’s habit, I put em in my list.
Also, once I see in someone a pattern of not arguing in good faith; someone who obviously takes whatever contrary opinion the wind blows them, just to keep the conversation contentious, I zap em.
For now. I may expose myself to such later on, but for now I’m in an angry-posting 12 step program. Like an alcoholic who must stay out of bars.
To avoid people like me?
Oh, yeh. I put one Doper on my ignore list because that person happened to be pushing my buttons regularly at that point. But the responses to that person in threads I was reading piqued my curiosity and I kept clicking on the “read it anyway” button. Finally gave up and unignored that Doper. I’d regained perspective (and my temper) by then anyway.
The Vice-President will act to to stop you. It’s in the Constitution.
That we’re human and that other humans occasionally wind us up? We’re not all zen masters, you know. Really; why do you care what other people do with their ignore list? It’s merely a shortcut to what people do anyway. I personally don’t use it because I find it gets confusing when other people respond to someone I’ve ignored, but there are undoubtedly people whose posts I simply don’t bother reading. Heck, there are entire threads and sections I don’t read, and for that matter I have yet to get around to finishing whole swathes of the rest of the internet. Why should you care that people use a tool to concentrate their limited spare time on the contributions of those people they find interesting? It’s no different from the fact that I now, after surveying arguably far more evidence than was strictly necessary, eschew van Damme movies in favour of, well, anything more interesting than scratching my ear. You man bemoan my potential loss of stimulation, should the weirdly-foreheaded one produce some epic work of cinematic magic, but again, that’s my lookout - not yours.
Stop worrying about how other people view the board, and interact with it in whatever manner pleases you.
I recently found out I made someone’s list. No, I won’t tell you who it was, so don’t bother asking.
It was funny though how the Doper ranted in the message I was ignored by him/her. Just couldn’t keep from interacting with me anyway. Instead of pitting me like a person of integrity and conviction, the person had to try for the cheap shot and hide out from the rest of us.
I know you’re reading this.
If someone gets you so worked up that you have to use the ignore list, it’s pretty much assured in human nature that you’ll be compelled to see what they say next. Call it the Howard Stern factor.
When you read a newspaper, do you read it from start to finish, every single article? Hell, no. But is not doing so ignorant? You read what you choose to read.
How is this any different?
Oh, definitely me. I don’t claim to be perfect, and occasionally I have the all too human failling of allowing something that someone says affect me emotionally on a subject about which I feel passionately. When that happens, it’s best for me to step away and not interact with that person until I can calm down and focus on the issue instead of letting it get personal. The ignore feature facilitates that. And the fact that nobody is allowed to dangle it in front of the ignored person insures that they don’t feel the need to change their posting style just because one person (like me) is being childish.
Why? Why does what I don’t read bother you?
I don’t. I do not find everyone on the planet intellectually stimulating, or at least not equally so. Filtering out the dingbats lets me spend more time reading the intelligent folks.
Do you read every bit of grafitti on every bathroom stall you enter? Why do you want to reduce, rather than increase, your level of intellectual stimulation?
How so? If you don’t read every thread, you are choosing to deprive yourself of knowledge on those topics, are you not? If you fail every week to read, for example, the latest discussion of The Amazing Race’s latest episode, you are choosing to exclude that information, intentionally. Why is that acceptable and yet putting a little blank post with a link to the real post in place of certain posters’ contributions is not? After all, in both cases you could change your mind and choose to click that link and see what’s there. You say you’re not interested in The Amazing Race? Isn’t that close-minded? Isn’t that contrary to the purpose of this board? I can’t understand the threat that such knowledge presents to posters, that they won’t even click on those threads and rely on this to shield them from such knowledge.
Or maybe you’ve found a method of saving time and reading what you’re interested in. I could be wrong.
For the record, I have no one on my Ignore list. However, I’m fairly irritated at this presentation of using this message board feature as being such an alien, anti-intellectual, and even pathological act. Some people use the board differently from you, and you fall all over yourself being appalled at this?
I haven’t used it, though I’ve been tempted once or twice. Basically, I just do the ignoring by myself. There are a couple of posters I’ve come across whose posts I will skip if I happen to read the poster’s name before getting mired in their crap. Reading anything by them is, consistently, a waste of time and not worth the effort of deciphering their drivel.
I do not agree that placing someone on your ignore list is anti-intellectual any more than I would agree that using a text filter to exclude content that doesn’t interest you is anti-intellectual.
While I don’t use this feature, I can understand why someone would. I am not particularly interested in finding the one time in thousands that some idiot utters a pearl of wisdom. Some people, like me, can skip over messages by the usual suspects without too much of a temptation to peek at the guts and get revolted by rubbernecking yet again. Others need an ignore list.