Using your Ignore List

[burglar]

My Kitchen Rules!

1.) Have fun!

2.) Stay safe.

3.) Have fun!!


These were my unwritten rules,
...
until now.

 

[Whiskers]

Nothing, and Whiskers has now been warned to keep his posts both on topic and reasonably concise.

The 'moderators' have already adjudicated at post #3 of the 'Changing your Mindset' thread that mindset is "An interesting topic that should have its own thread" and moved from 'using your ignore list' to there.

By definition mindset and my two previous posts are inherently related to choosing whether to ignore, or not... and arguably far more on topic than some other posts in this thread.

I'd be interested in your explanation as to how they are not on topic... and if not on topic given the above ruling that it is an "interesting topic", why they were not just moved to another thread such as the Changing your Mindset thread.

 

[Whiskers]

Whether or not he takes heed of my advice is up to him, but if he doesn't I will assume that his purpose here is to deliberately derail threads and disrupt the ASF community.

Joe, you have acknowledged you don't consider me a troll, that I have not broken any rules and not had any posts deleted, so I'm at a loss to understand your basis for accusing me of derailing threads and disrupting the ASF community.

Firstly, I recognised Julia wasn't her normal self and expressed some empathy for her back on 23rd October 2013 in the The Abbott Government # 735, where I said inter alia:

Normally she isn't into pointless personal ridicule or deliberately misquoting out of context, but she sure seems to be off her game occasionally for some reason.

I don't know what has happened to our Julia... she seems to lose a bit of focus and got stroppy every now and then. Look forward to talking to you again soon Julia.​

... and above in this thread Julia said she had "some significant difficulties in my life which are presently throwing me very much off balance" [30 Nov 2013, Post #81]

Clearly, Julia was having difficulties in her private life and issues with others including the quality of moderation on the forum before she started attacking/complaining against me.

On the other hand, Sails took offence at me rebutting his/her blatant misquoting and misrepresenting my comments and presenting clearly evident flawed data as reliable data and or fact. If there was ever any doubt of Sails bad faith, it was clearly demonstrated in post # 89 with "Every year I have voted for ASF but not this year".

What could be more disruptive to the forum than a disgruntled member (Sails) advocating voting for another forum?

Clearly a significant issue here is the wide variation of interpretation of the rules and inconsistent application of the rules by volunteer mod's that aggravated Julia’s mental state.

Finally, how can you reasonably hold me responsible for people being in a bad mood due to inconsistent forum moderation or this conflict, when Julia has since admitted to emotional stress in her private life and Sails has demonstrated the ultimate bad faith, to advocate voting against the forum?

 

[Joe Blow]

Joe, you have acknowledged you don't consider me a troll, that I have not broken any rules and not had any posts deleted, so I'm at a loss to understand your basis for accusing me of derailing threads and disrupting the ASF community.

Whiskers, I haven't accused you of this. I have merely asked you to consider modifying your posting style slightly as your current rambling, verbose posts are clearly having a negative impact on the threads you are posting in and frustrating other ASF members. What I did say, is that if you deliberately ignore my request, and simply carry on then I can come to no other conclusion that you are acting in bad faith and that your purpose is to derail threads and disrupt the forum. I do not see my request as being unreasonable. Please stay on topic and make your points as concisely as possible.

Whiskers, ASF is first and foremost a community. Part of belonging to a community is acknowledging that we all have a responsibility to help maintain and act as a positive influence in that community. I would like to think that if I pointed out to anyone here that their behaviour was having a negative impact on other ASF members that they would take that on board and modify their behavior accordingly.

Firstly, I recognised Julia wasn't her normal self and expressed some empathy for her back on 23rd October 2013 in the The Abbott Government # 735, where I said inter alia:

Normally she isn't into pointless personal ridicule or deliberately misquoting out of context, but she sure seems to be off her game occasionally for some reason.

I don't know what has happened to our Julia... she seems to lose a bit of focus and got stroppy every now and then. Look forward to talking to you again soon Julia.​

We all have good and bad days. Perhaps any concern of this nature should be expressed via private message so threads can remain on topic?

... and above in this thread Julia said she had "some significant difficulties in my life which are presently throwing me very much off balance" [30 Nov 2013, Post #81]

Clearly, Julia was having difficulties in her private life and issues with others including the quality of moderation on the forum before she started attacking/complaining against me.

On the other hand, Sails took offence at me rebutting his/her blatant misquoting and misrepresenting my comments and presenting clearly evident flawed data as reliable data and or fact. If there was ever any doubt of Sails bad faith, it was clearly demonstrated in post # 89 with "Every year I have voted for ASF but not this year".

What could be more disruptive to the forum than a disgruntled member (Sails) advocating voting for another forum?

Clearly a significant issue here is the wide variation of interpretation of the rules and inconsistent application of the rules by volunteer mod's that aggravated Julia’s mental state.

Moderation is a subjective process so it is "inconsistent" by its very nature. We have a number of different moderators who all have different personalities and different approaches to moderating. However, they are all even handed and fair. They all volunteer their time to lend a hand and help out, and I think they deserve thanks and appreciation, not vitriol, personal attacks and constant criticism. I'm not accusing you of that, but unfortunately it is an all too common occurrence.

Finally, how can you reasonably hold me responsible for people being in a bad mood due to inconsistent forum moderation or this conflict, when Julia has since admitted to emotional stress in her private life and Sails has demonstrated the ultimate bad faith, to advocate voting against the forum?

This isn't a case of people simply being in a bad mood. Many of the ASF members you refer to have been here for a number of years and do not make a habit of complaining about day to day forum matters. When they do, I listen. That's my job. If Sails wishes to vote for another forum, that is her prerogative. It's not against the forum rules to do so, nor does it impact ASF directly in any way.

Whiskers, this post demonstrates the problem perfectly. You have repeated yourself a number of times, gone off on tangents that are not relevant to the topic at hand and have made the post at least twice as long as it needed to be. It is a very frustrating process to adequately respond to such a post, and this is one of your shorter ones.

All I am asking is that you please consider others when posting and make your points concisely, without unnecessary waffle, repetition, and straying off topic. I ask this so that discussion in the threads that you participate in can flow a little better.

 

[waza1960]

Whiskers I believe that I have not overly criticized you. I have no reduced mental capacity that I'm aware of and have occasionally respected and appreciated your comments but by a substantial margin I was completely frustrated by the lengthy and rambling replies to the extent that you are the first person I have ever added to the ignore list and it was a relief to do so.
I'm sure you could continue to be a valuable member of this forum if you could only be a little more concise in your responses

 

[Julia]

Having received email notification of a PM, I've logged on in order to respond to it, and seen this ongoing piffle.

Firstly, I recognised Julia wasn't her normal self and expressed some empathy for her back on 23rd October 2013 in the The Abbott Government # 735, where I said inter alia:

Normally she isn't into pointless personal ridicule or deliberately misquoting out of context, but she sure seems to be off her game occasionally for some reason.​

If there had been any genuine concern it would appropriately have been expressed via PM. The above "empathy" is an ill disguised continuation of the peculiar type of almost stalking behaviour that has been in place by Whiskers for many weeks, directed toward myself, Sails, Sydboy and, to a lesser extent, others .

Clearly, Julia was having difficulties in her private life and issues with others including the quality of moderation on the forum before she started attacking/complaining against me.

On the contrary, I have never had an issue with the quality of moderation on this site, until a single instance involving one moderator who chose to address an issue in public which should have been handled privately.
Appropriate discussions about this have now occurred which are the business of no one other than the two people concerned, and Joe, of course, and are resolved.

Yes, I have expressed disappointment and sadness at the increased level of vituperative inter-personal contact here, and don't want to be a part of that sort of combative atmosphere.
Neither can I be bothered with trying to ignore someone so determined to harass others.

Trembling Hand put it very well:

I guess a person could think its condescending and extremely disrespectful to talk to others in such a socially deficient, awkward and and outright passive aggressive way but therein in lies the truth. We are dealing with someone that needs 'special consideration'......... to use a politicly correct term.

If it wasn't such a reoccurring pattern of stating the bleedingly obvious..... maybe. But it is a subtle tactic Whiskers has refined to get at others. Frankly it doesn't bother me but like I said it seems somewhere in the area of passive aggressive... internet troll style..... JMHO

And again from Whiskers

Clearly a significant issue here is the wide variation of interpretation of the rules and inconsistent application of the rules by volunteer mod's that aggravated Julia’s mental state.

This is the sort of utter b/s that so characterises its author.

FWIW, my mental state is, as far as I know, perfectly sound.

Whiskers, please do not address any further remarks to me, or have the bad manners to comment on personal issues on a public forum.​

 

[trainspotter]

Dear God !!!!! He has done it again

 

[Whiskers]

We all have good and bad days. Perhaps any concern of this nature should be expressed via private message so threads can remain on topic?

With all due respect Joe I was prepared to communicate by PM but the person concerned cut off PM communication. See the "Please clear your PM inbox" thread, 18 October 2013.

While there, have a look at the different reaction I got when my inbox was full compared to others from the same person. Apparently it was completely unreasonable of me to have my PM box full, but no big deal for others to have a full PM inbox... or even for that person to have a full PM inbox themselves later when someone tried to PM them. That clearly is a double standard and not acting in good faith.

On a forum of any significant size there will always be those whose posts irritate, anger and frustrate you, sometimes compelling you to post things that may inflame the discussion or that might fall outside of the forum rules.

An easy solution to this problem is to put these people on your ignore list, so their posts are automatically filtered out by the forum software.

There are two easy ways to do this:

1. Click on their user name and view their profile. At the top left of their profile you will see a list of options, one of which is Add to Ignore List. Simply click this option, then click Yes to confirm and they will immediately be added to your ignore list.

2. If you click on Settings you will see the option Edit Ignore List under the My Account heading. Simply click on this option to manually add and remove other members from your ignore list.

Although I do my best to enforce the rules and maintain order here at ASF, there's not much I can really do for those who get profoundly annoyed by the posts of another ASF member who posts within ASF's rules. At some point that person has to take some kind of proactive step to solve the problem. The ignore list is a very effective solution to this problem, will keep the peace and hopefully help you to retain your sanity.

I must make one additional point though. I will not look very kindly upon anyone who, after being informed that they have been placed on someone's ignore list, persists in making remarks about that person in their posts, or who continues to respond to their posts, knowing that person cannot see their replies. Once you have been told you have been placed on someone's ignore list, the onus is on you to back off and focus your energies elsewhere.

If anyone has any questions, please feel free to ask.

Joe, if it's fair for a person to be informed and asked not to reply directly to someone once that someone claims to have put one on 'ignore' ... then isn't it only fair and reasonable that when that someone demonstrates bad faith by 'peeking', or taking ignore off later, as evidenced by comment in posts, that one be advised the first person has deactivated the 'Ignore' button?

Otherwise, isn't the ignore list wide open to abuse for people to make false complaints in bad faith just in an attempt to abuse the rules to try to gag people from participating and or responding to personal comments about them in earlier posts?

Whiskers I believe that I have not overly criticized you. I have no reduced mental capacity that I'm aware of and have occasionally respected and appreciated your comments but by a substantial margin I was completely frustrated by the lengthy and rambling replies to the extent that you are the first person I have ever added to the ignore list and it was a relief to do so.

Well, if I'm on your ignore list, how come you are replying to me?

Aren't you acting in bad faith, saying one thing and doing the opposite?

I'm sure you could continue to be a valuable member of this forum if you could only be a little more concise in your responses

Isn't it more valuable to deal in the truth and facts than just being concise?

What if you were accused of say robbery in a concise charge sheet, a few words... and how would you feel if you were presumed guilty and there was some rule that you had to defend the complaint just as concisely, in a sentence or two? Not very happy I'm sure!

Further, who said you or anyone had "reduced mental capacity"?

I certainly didn't. Regarding, "significant difficulties in my life which are presently throwing me very much off balance", I referred to this as a "bad mood" and "emotional stress"... both of which are in the normal range of mental capacity and an appropriate paraphrase, to be less so called verbose.

---------------------------------------------------
I'd have thought misrepresentation of what people say is not only a lie, but also baiting and under the Code of Conduct rule 2, "Forum trolling - the intentional provoking of other forum members - is also forbidden".

 

[Ves]

Isn't it more valuable to deal in the truth and facts than just being concise?

I've always looked at it differently - the layman takes a thousand words to say what the expert or wise man can say in very few. Being able to simply, yet eloquently, distill subject matter into fewer words requires a great understanding of the topic upon which you are expounding. That is not to say that brevity is a sign of wisdom; it most always is not, but it's as good a place to look for it than almost all others.

This business is well ended.
My liege, and madam, to expostulate
What majesty should be, what duty is,
Why day is day, night night, and time is time,
Were nothing but to waste night, day and time.
Therefore, since brevity is the soul of wit,
And tediousness the limbs and outward flourishes,
I will be brief: your noble son is mad:
Mad call I it; for, to define true madness,
What is't but to be nothing else but mad?
But let that go.

 

[Joe Blow]

Joe, if it's fair for a person to be informed and asked not to reply directly to someone once that someone claims to have put one on 'ignore' ... then isn't it only fair and reasonable that when that someone demonstrates bad faith by 'peeking', or taking ignore off later, as evidenced by comment in posts, that one be advised the first person has deactivated the 'Ignore' button?

Otherwise, isn't the ignore list wide open to abuse for people to make false complaints in bad faith just in an attempt to abuse the rules to try to gag people from participating and or responding to personal comments about them in earlier posts?

Honestly, it's a crying shame that petty forum politics has gotten to the point where we have to have rules and policies regarding the use of people's ignore lists. Is this ASF or primary school? Sometimes I'm not so sure.

The bottom line is this: If you don't like someone's posts, add them to your ignore list. From that point on, don't make comments about them or refer to them in your posts. I will consider that to be deliberate provocation. If you are aware that you have been placed on someone's ignore list then do not respond to their posts or make comments about them in your posts. Ignoring means ignoring, full stop.

 

[sails]

Honestly, it's a crying shame that petty forum politics has gotten to the point where we have to have rules and policies regarding the use of people's ignore lists. Is this ASF or primary school? Sometimes I'm not so sure.

The bottom line is this: If you don't like someone's posts, add them to your ignore list. From that point on, don't make comments about them or refer to them in your posts. I will consider that to be deliberate provocation. If you are aware that you have been placed on someone's ignore list then do not respond to their posts or make comments about them in your posts. Ignoring means ignoring, full stop.

Sounds good to me, Joe. Yes it is a shame that it has come to this and in my 8 years of membership I have never felt so put off posting here. I have a couple of others on ignore but feel no need to let them know as they do not stalk one's posts.

I do have Whiskers in ignore so I am hoping now that I can post without phrases of my posts being analysed to the enth degree and no more of Whiskers placing his interpretation of my posts and posting it as fact. This is the last time I will mention Whiskers in a post given the new rules (and provided Whiskers leaves me alone) but felt I have some right of reply given his unnecessary and incorrect comments that left me feeling frustrated and annoyed.

Let's see how this new rule goes.

Thanks Joe.

 

[Garpal Gumnut]

Sounds good to me, Joe. Yes it is a shame that it has come to this and in my 8 years of membership I have never felt so put off posting here.
Thanks Joe.

Agree.

gg

 

[trainspotter]

Agree.

gg

Seems to be a common thread here .... eh Whiskers?

 

[Dona Ferentes]

The point of the Ignore List isn't to ignore someone who is breaking the forums rules, it's to ignore someone who is posting within the forum rules but their posting style, attitude or opinions are particularly objectionable to you. It's possible for someone to be conceited, arrogant, condescending, dogmatic, pompous, repetitive, overly verbose or to have opinions that you find distasteful but still not be breaking any forum rules.

These are the people for whom the Ignore List exists.

I have just exercised this function for one hyperactive contributor.

I think you missed narcissistic, on the spectrum, prolix, self-aggrandising AND insensitive, let alone killing both any thread narrative and ASF as a whole.

 

[wayneL]

I have just exercised this function for one hyperactive contributor.

I think you missed narcissistic, on the spectrum, prolix, self-aggrandising AND insensitive, let alone killing both any thread narrative and ASF as a whole.

Sometimes it's good to use if you just need a break from someone for a while too, not necessarily permanently.

 

[Joe Blow]

Any online community that has more than a handful of people is going to have people you like and people you dislike. There's no way of getting around it. But I can assure you that the person that you dislike is liked by someone else, possibly many others. We all have different personalities and different sensibilities and different kinds of people irritate all of us. If I had to ban everyone that someone else disliked, we'd all be banned, including me.

So, if you're finding yourself irritated by someone else's posts then add them to your ignore list. Problem solved.

 

[Craton]

From my own experience I don't use the Ignore function but I do try to see the poster's POV. I may have used it once for all of 5 seconds but soon realised I was missing the context/narrative/the gist of it and even the humour.

If the poster is, as @Dona Ferentes eloquently puts it, "...narcissistic, on the spectrum, prolix, self-aggrandising AND insensitive, let alone killing both any thread narrative and ASF as a whole." I simply ignore said posts, ignore most if not all the replies or ignore the thread entirely.

That's just me though, I may have tougher skin than most or, more accurately, my brain is slower than most but I eventually work it out in the end...

 

[macca]

Scrolling past "them" works for me, that way if another poster mentions "them" I can have a read of the relevant post and the thread still makes sense

 

[Garpal Gumnut]

I realise this may be similar to that great question " How many angels can one put on the head of a pin," but ...

Is it possible to put oneself on ignore?

gg

 

[Sean K]

I realise this may be similar to that great question " How many angels can one put on the head of a pin," but ...

Is it possible to put oneself on ignore?

gg

I've got you on ignore gg.