They shouldn’t be able to do that!
I think the way it works is good.
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If the blocked user browses on another account (or not logged in at all), they can’t tell that you have blocked them.
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Bot/spam accounts can’t use the blocking system to stop users who target these accounts to call them out on their disguised malicious behavior. This became a problem on Reddit when they changed their blocking system away from what we have here.
Edit: I guess there is a downside of if so many of the sane users block the same nutjobs, then there won’t be anybody to downvote or refute those nutjobs
I guess there is a downside of if so many of the sane users block the same nutjobs, then there won’t be anybody to downvote or refute those nutjobs
This has nothing to do with the block system. No matter how it worked, this would be the case. What you’re describing isn’t a block system, it’s moderation, which we still have (though it’s obviously up to the moderators of any given community). That is to say, blocking only affects what you see. Moderation affects what everyone sees, which is what you’re talking about here.
True…
if so many of the sane users block the same nutjobs, then there won’t be anybody to downvote or refute those nutjobs
Don’t worry, a lot of us never block anybody, specifically so we can do exactly that.
i used to do that, but my sanity suffered, now i block liberally
But the nut job will be stuck in his own bubble unable to talk to everyone, which is more sane than engaging them
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I’m more annoyed by losing the “Block Community” button when a sub’s admin blocks me.
I agree, but meh, I don’t think I care much about it one way or another. Just not seeing their annoying replies is enough for me. 🤷😅
Blocking on Lemmy is really just muting, and it should be called that.
A real blocking feature would be nice (it exists on other fediverse platforms).
The devs have said that blocking wouldn’t do anything because everything is public, so the blocked user could still access the content they are blocked from but frankly that’s bs. If that were true, then there would be no point of banning either, right?
Devs want a monopoly on the power to block people they don’t like through the use of bans (and they claim to be all for the people).
Devs want a monopoly on the power to block people they don’t like through the use of bans
Admins can ban on a per instance basis. Moderators can ban on a per community basis. But devs don’t have any particular banning power.
Well, the devs are also the major community moderators and admins on the ml instance, which was the largest for a long time.
They still treat it like their private walled garden.
I may be overreaching with my assumption about their motivations, but then again I may not.
Ehh. I don’t think that the underlying goal was to try to obtain some sort of “ban monopoly” on the Threadiverse. If they had, they had a ton of things that they could have done that they didn’t.
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Don’t support federation in the first place.
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Have lemmy.ml and friends simply disallow federation with other instances.
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Break compatibility in new builds to make it harder for people to run other instances. Don’t open-source Lemmy in the first place.
Like, I think that it’s pretty lame that some of the official Lemmy software support stuff is communities on lemmy.ml, which has an admin situation that I don’t really like. But…that seems like an awfully weak lever to be pulling if someone’s goal is to try to exclude anyone else from having the ability to restrict users.
I’m more expressing frustration that they have been approached multiple times about fixing the broken blocking by either renaming it muting (what it actually is), or creating an actual blocking feature. The excuses they provide are nonsensical.
Blocking protects users. Why would a federated platform not want to protect users?
I’ve got a top-level comment about why I’d rather not have a feature of the form OP requested. Reddit’s block feature originally worked the way the Threadiverse’s block feature presently does. It was later changed, and that change introduced problems.
However, that being said, I do think that there may be a real UI issue if people think that they’re preventing responses, but aren’t actually doing so, and get frustrated. That’d be a legit UI issue.
considers
I don’t think I’d use “mute”. In IRC, “mute” refers to a moderation action more analogous to what OP wants. I think that that could still produce confusion.
Usenet uses “kill”, for “killfile”, in the sense of “automatically killing posts from a user”. Probably not a great choice either.
Maybe “ignore” would be better than “block”, though. I think that that would make it unambiguous what the operation is doing. I’m guessing that the Lemmy devs just chose “block” because Reddit happened to use it, didn’t put a whole lot of thought into it.
Related story: I once worked with a guy who had worked on Yahoo Maps, way back when. It was one of the first mapping services to provide navigation instructions. He told me that he was the one who had, at some point, suggested “bear” as a verb for the navigation decisions (e.g. “bear right”). It was a pretty off-the-cuff decision, but apparently it’s confusing to some people, since “bear” isn’t a terribly-commonly-used term and can potentially be confused with the animal of the same name. IIRC, Yahoo Maps ultimately changed it, years later, but I understand that not only did they use the term for quite some years, but some other services also copied it, so it had considerable inertia.
kagis
https://www.dailydot.com/unclick/kid-gps-instructions-bear-right/
EDIT: Sorry, I think it was actually MapQuest that he was working on, not Yahoo Maps.
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Hopefully people migrating from lemmy to Piefed eventually fixes a lot of these core issues.
I didn’t particularly hade or love Piefed. I have an account and i also have saved there a community about to be lost when lemm.ee is gone offline. That said, I still feel more comfortable using Lemmy. Maybe is just a matter of habits.
But its developed by Tankies who wish you and others immediate harm, so definitely a risky longterm strat.
A point worth considering 🤔 but i’ll still try to coexist x now.
That style of blocking makes sense for more personal social media, but I don’t think it fits a public forum like the Threadiverse. On Reddit, bad actors were able to weaponize blocking to hide from anyone who would disagree with them, anyone who would push back against misinformation. That did a lot more harm than good.
Everything you post here is public, and you should expect that anyone can see it, even people you do not like. If you don’t want to see someone you don’t like, that’s what blocking is for, but you shouldn’t expect to be able control who can see your posts when they’re all public to begin with.
If something is so sensitive that you think you need to hide it from someone you don’t like, then this probably isn’t the platform to post it on at all.
For anyone wondering how the blocking feature has been weaponized to spread misinformation, in 2022 a redditor did an experiment: https://www.reddit.com/r/TheoryOfReddit/comments/sdcsx3/testing_reddits_new_block_feature_and_its_effects/
Afaik, the blocking feature is still in the same state as in 2022, which makes modern reddit a heaven for spreading misinformation.
My main experience with blocking is when people use it to “get the last word” in an argument. They’ll write up a response - often containing questions and challenges to my position - and then immediately block me after posting it so that it will look like I gave up in the face of their arguments.
I usually just edit my previous comment with whatever responses seem necessary, playing an Uno Reverse on them since they’ll be the ones who never see it.
It’s still rather annoying, though, because if other people also respond Reddit’s brain-dead implementation prevents me from responding to other people who have responded to someone who blocked me.
I am glad that the Fediverse has a much more sane approach to blocking that doesn’t let it be weaponized like that.
At the time when I became inactive on Reddit, Azerbaijan was building up to finish the Nagarno Karrabach conflict once and for all. There was a lot of blatant anti Armenian, pro Azerbaijani misinformation being posted in relevant discussions (that they were tolerant, only wanting peace, there was never any ethnic cleansing, …), and most of those comments went without anyone posting a simple fact check to debunk it.
I suspected that they had been sharing a blocklist and had blocked most of those who would call them out on their bullshit. I didn’t bother either since I just expected to be blocked as well and I had basically given up on the platform anyhow. I found swapping accounts to read threads annoying as hell, so it was easier to not comment and just be silently disappointed in humanity.
The fact checks that I did see at the time, were mostly posted as a reply to the top comment of the chain, hoping to go unnoticed by the one spreading misinformation, but that will only work for so long. Reddit is fucked when it comes to discussing political news or gauging public opinion (imo), it’s now designed for spreading misinformation (imo again).
The worst part IMO is that if they commented anywhere in the chain you’re blocked from that entire chain. Say you’re having a nice conversation back and forth about something, then they reply to the original comment (not even seeing you) now you’re blocked from the entire thread of comments.
Two sides of the medal…
Thank you for explaining to me why I didn’t like blocking but couldn’t express why.
I’d call what you’re describing “muting” rather than blocking.
I used to agree with you, but then I spoke with some people from persecuted minorities, and this style of blocking just gives power to their abusers rather than keeping their communities and themselves safe.
Yes they can get a new account, but it’s another hurdle, and if we erect enough hurdles then it’ll catch enough of them. Defense in depth.
We’ve seen the problems with Reddit’s style of blocking already.
If someone’s being truly abusive, that’s something you should report to moderators or instance admins.
I agree it has problems, but that doesn’t mean that anything is better.
Reporting someone is good, but isn’t that subject to the exact same reasons why “it won’t work”? If reddit style blocking someone isn’t effective anyways, why would admin bans be effective?
This assumes that admins and mods even have the capacity to deal with all this shit, which seems to be very uncertain.I don’t understand what you mean. Moderator bans do work, that’s a moderator’s job.
a common response I’ve been getting is “blocking doesn’t work, they just need to make a new account”
but then they say “if its really a problem, then they just need to report the user”
but if making a new account would defeat blocking, then making a new account would defeat reporting a user. its either effective in both places or neither place.That isn’t what I said. You’re replying to me to talk about somebody else’s argument, while completely ignoring mine.
sorry i was getting it mixed up, i’ve had a very similar conversations a few times and that rebuttal came up multiple times.
mods and admins are overworked, and they can’t always be expected to keep up to date with dogwhistles along with everything else they have to manage. besides, harassment doesn’t always appear to break ToS - starting rumours and spreading lies about someone can be very difficult to prove to a mod, but can have huge repercussions in some communities.
and besides, it can take a while before mods/admins are able to take action.IMO I think a few things should exist.
I should be able to prevent someone from replying to my content even if I can’t prevent them from seeing it.
Additionally, I think there should be a best effort to make invite-only/private communities. I know that the fediverse makes this technically difficult, but having something is better than having nothing.
Some users would write their reply and then quickly block the other person so their points couldn’t be contested.
This has happened to me multiple times. And yes, I did consider it to be a serious issue. It’s too abusive of a feature
Here’s how I frame it to myself: that person is basically screaming into the void after I block them. Sure, other people on here can see what they wrote, but 99.9% of them won’t care or remember. I was their “intended target” and I’ll never see their stupid comment. If it makes you feel any better, I’ve noticed a lot of troll types really hate being blocked and complain about it fairly regularly. You blocked them, you won the peace of them no longer existing for you.
Also, if you’ve blocked them for being obnoxious, others probably have, too.
If I block someone, and one of their posts or comments gets reported for moderation, it won’t allow the moderation tools to work. I have to un-block them to moderate them.
And why for a long time I didnt block people. Especially when I was modding TenForward
This is why moderators should use a separate account for moderation actions than their main
Yes, except that you won’t see the reports on your other account and will have to periodically check your moderator accounts.
that’s fully expected, if you don’t want to see someone’s posts why would you be able to moderate those posts?
When you click on a report, it should bypass any block, it doesn’t.
This isn’t organically viewing a post, it’s responding to a report and it is visible when reported.
My only gripe is that the blocked comment’s replies are also not visible. I want to see what everyone else is saying, even if they’re replying to a blocked user. I just don’t care what the blocked user says.
Maybe you don’t need a block function to accomplish that, then. Seems you could accomplish it by just not caring about what the user says.
I don’t -it’s the replies TO the blocked user I’d like to see.
Then don’t block them.
No
In that case you won’t see the replies to the blocked user.
I think you’re at an impasse.
I’m hopeful developers will find a way to support blocking without truncating subthreads.
It already works that way.
I don’t mind it, but if the devs change it I hope they don’t take the Reddit route that prevents you from replying to any comment chain the user is in, especially with how small Lemmy is. Direct replies I can understand.
i had several instances on reddit, where the person commenting evaded a block by using a new account.
I have no issue with this whatsoever. I block people so that I don’t need to see their posts, not that they couldn’t see mine. If you don’t want others reading what you post online, then don’t post online.
Also, while other locations in the Fediverse might disable access to unauthenticated persons, comments and post in Lemmy are generally public in that way. So, a blocked user could simply logout (or visit from a different instance) to see the content.
Also, as a third-party I do want someone (e.g. a fact checker) to be able reply to a comment with more information, so that I can see it, even if the commenter doesn’t want to see replies (from the “woke mob” or wikipedians, e.g.).
I understand some people think the reply thread under their comments is somehow “owned” and should be “controlled” by them, but I don’t agree. I think this should also be true in most places on the Fediverse, tho it isn’t (as I understand it) on Mastodon (and the like).
This sounds like the words of an abuser.
Please rethink your life
Huh . I will.
deleted by creator
deleted by creator
deleted by creature
u ok?
derbated buh crater
That’s just an unhinged thing to say.
Perhaps some people want others reading what they post online but don’t want to be bullied.
You can block bullies. They can continue to waste their time writing mean messages but those will never reach you.
Agreed. It’s a flaw in the system
Thank you.
it was kinda same with reddit too. people just get around it by using another account and just harrass you again, or they try to brigade you and report.
I wish we had time-limited blocks / mutes on Lemmy. I use them all the time on Mastodon to exit a conversation when I am getting to short. If it really matters, I can revisit after a fortnight of reflection.
Blocking someone is not a tool to silence them. It’s a tool to ignore them.
I think communicating that someone is blocked is a useful part of blocking. Even if it’s just a notification after comment “you have a blocked reply, it will not be visible to the poster”.
Someone else in this thread pointed out that this would just encourage bad actors to make sock puppet accounts to get around being blocked.
Bad actors already do that.
I could see someone being frustrated that from a third party, it looks like you are not responding to a reply and that person could spin that as a concession that they were right
I could see a compromise, where a direct reply from such a blocked/muted person is allowed, but indicated so that people are aware a response could not have been done.
Yeah, by blocking them you are saying YOU don’t want to see their posts. That doesn’t mean you get to make that decision for everyone else. I don’t see the problem here.
I never had a twitter account, but made a bsky account just to support people moving away from there even though I’d them they move to mastodon.
Anyway, I saw a post claiming a certain fetish term was now forbidden because it was being used a slur. I commented that I’ve only ever heard it used to refer to a real person when the person in question was using it to describe themselves. I got some positive responses, but the ended up getting blocked from replying when they disagreed with me. Can 3rd parties see blocks or did it just look like I chickened out?
I didn’t care for that and I think these little “features” of twitter that people have gotten use to has twisted how to interact with other people. On reddit or lemmy, the topic is the main focus and the people managing the topic should be the only ones who control what gets said there. With twitter and bsky, the opening post is the main focus and they get control of what gets said. I prefer the former over that latter.
Reddit also blocks you from replying. Not just to that person, but to the comment thread in general. So many people do the insult-block to “win” a conversation.
The mods of the sub are the ones to decide who gets blocked though. Not the person you’re auguring with, unless you’re arguing with is a mod.
The mods can ban you, but anyone can block you and stop you from commenting on threads they are involved in.
A block should also be able to prevent them from seeing your activity. That would not constitute silencing the blocked individual as they can still go anywhere and talk to/see anyone else on the fediverse, just not you.
If you don’t want everyone seeing your activity, don’t post it on a public internet system. Blocks can easily be circumvented.
No, I don’t think that would be good. So for example if there was a guy who thought we should all be eating lead. And every time he posts you put up facts about how eating lead was poisonous. And then the lead guy blocked you. Then every time the lead guy posts about how everyone should eat lead, you wouldn’t see it and so you wouldn’t be able to reply with how lead is poisonous.
So if the lead guy blocked everyone who disagreed with him publicly. Then the lead guy can just post whatever they want and no who knew lead was poisonous would reply because they wouldn’t see the post. So others who didn’t know lead was poisonous would start seeing this guy posting about eating lead without being challenged. And so they might think it’s a good thing.
I see what you mean. Personally I’m gonna side with the folks that need the block functionality as a defense against stalking/harassment though.
The lead eater can ban anyone they want but that doesn’t stop others from posting direct challenges to the lead eater’s rhetoric elsewhere. I think its better to help those in need than to leave them vulnerable with less than ideal tools to protect themselves.
But even that case doesn’t work because someone could use a different account (or no account at all) to do the stalking.
Apart from real world means, the best defence against stalking/harassment is to stop posting on a public account associated with the identity that’s being stalked/harassed. If someone is that horrible to stalk you, they’ll be more than capable of circumventing a block.
Also, while there’s no absolute guarantee, most communities have something vaguely along the lines of prohibiting harassment, as do most instances.
That doesn’t mean that a given user’s idea of harassment and a moderator’s or admin’s idea will always perfectly line up. What you think of as being harassment might be what some other people consider disagreeing. But in general, if someone is clearly following a user around and just commenting with the aim of trying to make them miserable, rather than disagreeing with them on some point or something, you can probably report it to a moderator (or, ultimately, admin) and have them remove their comments and probably issue a ban. Brings a third party’s eyes into the situation.
And if you truly don’t feel that a given community’s moderators are sufficiently-restrictive, you can switch to a community that has more-restrictive rules.
There is a need for more precise terminology. We should refer to “block” as stopping someone from interacting with you or your submissions/comments and “mute”/“ignore” as making it so that the person’s own actions cannot be seen by you.
Discord recently made this distinction; it makes sense imo
A lot of people here never had a stalker and it shows.
I don’t think blocking is an effective measure.
Precisely because blocking here doesn’t do anything really. On a different platform the feature made me invisible to the person and it helped reduce their obsession with me massively. Out of sight out of mind is true for a lot of people.
If you’re concerned about someone being able to see your activity, no blacklisting-based system — which is what OP is talking about in terms of “blocking” would be – on a system without expensive identifiers (which the Threadiverse is not and Reddit is not — both let you make new accounts at zero cost) will do much of anything. All someone has to do is to just make a new account to monitor your activity. Or, hell, Reddit and a ton of Threadiverse instances provide anonymous access. Not to mention that on the Threadiverse, anyone who sets up an instance can see all the data being exchanged anyway.
In practice, if your concern is your activity being monitored, then you’re going to have to use a whitelisting-based system. Like, the Fediverse would need to have something like invite-only communities, and the whole protocol would have to be changed in a major way.
Some stalkers might notice and circumvent, but most won’t because in their mind they aren’t doing anything wrong so why would they check if they got blocked. But apparently if the solution is not perfect it’s not worth doing anything to deter it seems.
You can choose to federate with a specific server. I believe some mastodon servers would honour requests to only share with specific accounts, but that’s it.
You could possibly have some encryption key shenanigans go on at the client side and build it ontop of the fediverse. It might be possible.
