Done! Ignoring threads and forums (New feature conversation)

[badhabits]

Maybe I am missing it (or it's wishful thinking), but is there a way to ignore entire threads? so it is never see again in feeds and new posts?

 

[Arcy]

Not currently. It's on the road map.

 

[Pixiegod]

all those word game threads, I know ....

 

[TimWilson]

I'm already writing the introduction doc for this in my head, and it will reference Robert Frost's Mending Wall, "Good fences make good neighbors." The ability to ignore people, threads, forums, whatever is an important part of elevating one's daily experience of any community (which I'd extend to the broader world of social media platforms too). It matters.

So when @Arcy says it's on the roadmap, it's a little more than just on the map, shall we say.

 

[Arcy]

I'm already writing the introduction doc for this in my head, and it will reference Robert Frost's Mending Wall, "Good fences make good neighbors." The ability to ignore people, threads, forums, whatever is an important part of elevating one's daily experience of any community (which I'd extend to the broader world of social media platforms too). It matters.

Feature implemented. Unfortunately I forgot about the planned intro and stole his thunder with a bland, boring post: Just the facts.
Sorry, Tim!

 

[TimWilson]

Feature implemented. Unfortunately I forgot about the planned intro and stole his thunder with a bland, boring post: Just the facts.
Sorry, Tim!

Haha! Awesome! Both the feature and the fact!

I'll show you all my favorite part though: it's there in your profile drop-down:



Click that link that says Ignoring, and it takes you to a control panel in your profile that shows the people, threads, and forums you're ignoring, asking with a handy option to unignore if you change your mind.

It's worth paying some attention to this! The previous default Ignore function showed you when, say, a member you're ignoring posted something in a thread you're watching, with an option to show that single post without unignoring them. No more! When you've shut something off, it's OFF.

The cool part of that is that it's off everywhere, too, including the New Posts. This had the potential to seriously transform your experience here, and the power is all in your hands! As I love to say, Choose you're t own adventure!

And by all means, practice ignoring AND unignoring, just to make sure it works as expected. This add-on has been around for a bit, and has super-solid reviews, but we're still counting on you to let us know what you see!

@Arcy, if you're going to have a Muppet for an avatar, it might should be Animal! Rock on!

Best,
Tim
Mod

 

[TBB]

Woohoo!

edit: I love this! I’ve just hit ignore on a few threads and I already feel like I’m saving valuable scrolling energy

 

[rainbow21]

This feels like the 800GotJunk commercial where you just point and its gone. Whoo hoo!

 

[badhabits]

This feels like the 800GotJunk commercial where you just point and its gone. Whoo hoo!

it is definitely a better experience without certain threads and posters cluttering things up... big thanks to Tim and crew!

 

[Jan D]

Is there a way for members to find out if their own posts or threads are being marked as “ignore”? It would be useful to know, for example, if a significant number of members are avoiding our own questions, comments, or threads. With that knowledge, we could then choose to consider modifying how, and what, we express on the Forum. As is the case with many human traits, we can’t stop being annoying if we don’t know we’re annoying in the first place.

 

[Mike $]

Thanks for this function Mods. I am now the proud ignorer of several threads and forums....yes I know the plural of forum, but I am speaking English, not Latin.

 

[Pixiegod]

all those word game threads, I know ....

our prayers have been answered! Thanks to the admins for their excellent work!

 

[Renaissance-Man]

Personally, my internal ignore is all I need. Thanks to the admins for your excellent work.

 

[badhabits]

Is there a way for members to find out if their own posts or threads are being marked as “ignore”? It would be useful to know, for example, if a significant number of members are avoiding our own questions, comments, or threads. With that knowledge, we could then choose to consider modifying how, and what, we express on the Forum. As is the case with many human traits, we can’t stop being annoying if we don’t know we’re annoying in the first place.

This is an interesting idea... I would be curious myself (or a top 3 most ignored/annoying posts of the month thread! ...no, not really), but I can see where it could possibly cause problems or stifle contributions, if possible. Jan D, you (and others) have the maturity and awareness to reflect and modify your behavior/posts... Unfortunately, I would guess that those that really need it don't or don't care enough to do so.

 

[Arcy]

Is there a way for members to find out if their own posts or threads are being marked as “ignore”?

It's non-trivial, and I expect it would cause more problems that it solved.

Feelings would be hurt, and I wouldn't want to suppress discussion because you were afraid of being ignored. Likewise I wouldn't want anybody to feel that they shouldn't ignore some thing because it might hurt somebody else to be ignored. The point of the feature is to allow more discussion that isn't to everybody's taste.

There are many completely valid topics that aren't interesting to everyone, and there are topics that are initially interesting but which go on longer than some people want to read. Ignore let's people curate their own feed to see what most interests them without interfering with others who want to read something different.

Invalid topics include spam, hate speech, the thing that attracts the wrong ads, and the standard topics to avoid in unknown company because they're likely to cause a fight (politics, religion, etc). Report these.

Most everything else is at worst harmless fun. Ignore them if they aren't your thing, and don't worry if somebody else ignores them.

 

[TimWilson]

With that knowledge, we could then choose to consider modifying how, and what, we express on the Forum.

This exceptionally humble and lovely attitude is a reflection of why I am willing to wager any sum that you are on exactly nobody's ignore list.

The point of the feature is to allow more discussion that isn't to everybody's taste.

Exactly this. The last thing we're interested in is anybody second-guessing themselves before posting...although then again, maybe some folks should. LOL A too-obvious-to-ignore joke notwithstanding, this really is the point. Forums, threads, and the people on them should be who they are, AND folks reading along should be able to curate their own feeds. To my mind, there's not only no conflict between those goals -- they're dependent on each other.

An example of the way this works in practice is that somebody on my Ignore list could be your favorite on the list of people you follow. Neither of those should necessarily influence how that Ignored/Followed person conducts themselves either way.

Having spent way too much time on social media feeds, I've also seen some people collect as much negative feedback as they possibly can, as some bizarro world affirmation that they're on the "right" track. I don't need to give you any examples do it? So also at the bottom of the list of desired outcomes is encouraging people who take pleasure and pride in stirring the pot.

More of a response than your compassionate question perhaps called for after Arcy's wise and insightful reply, but that's the additional context. Yes, as Arcy observes, the technology to expose this is difficult, but, based on what we've seen elsewhere around the web, we think that the outcomes are potentially unpleasant. "Ignore" is about pre-emptive de-escalation, removing potential (or proven!) annoyances from your browsing experience without causing new conflicts.

 

[KohanMike]

I actually have censored myself. I started a thread or made a post from time to time that have annoyed people, who express that in their replies, which made me realize I shouldn't have made the thread or post in the first place and deleted the entire thread or post.

 

[Jan D]

This exceptionally humble and lovely attitude is a reflection of why I am willing to wager any sum that you are on exactly nobody's ignore list.

Thank you for your kind words, Tim. However, you would lose your wager. As a regular participant in the word game threads, it's probably safe to assume that, by virtue, I am already on somebody’s Ignore list. But it’s ok; I don’t have a problem with that.

For me, the real eye-opener in all of this was discovering that other members were annoyed by the posts in the word game community. My first reaction was, “Well, why are they going to the General Discussion section in the first place, if they don’t like all the word game posts?” That’s when I realized that their process for finding/reading new posts must be different than mine. Presumably they are using the ”New Posts“ feature. By that method, I can only imagine just how many game thread entries they must have to scroll through every day. Heck, even I would probably find it annoying.

But now that y’all have created the Ignore feature, I don’t have to consider modifying my participation in the the word games (or any other thread, for that matter). Yaay, a win-win situation! I can be as annoying as I want.

 

[Spieler]

The funny thing (to me) being, I assumed this was another "Whoops, I answered my own question/no need to respond" thread in which the subject title had been edited after the fact, laughed to myself (over days of seeing Ignore repeatedly in the New Posts list) at how strongly the word "Ignore" precipitated an immediate CLICK ME response in my brain --one that I commended my own self for overriding, repeatedly

Then here today I finally decide to click after all, based on ongoing responses, and whoa:
Super-valuable content, effective administration and implementation of yet more helpful tools, and a lovely conversation.

Thanks, all!
~ S

among those who access/enter via New Posts, a great way to quickly catch up *and* be made aware of posts of potential interest across subforums....

 

[SweetWaterBlue]

Thanks for bringing this up, Badhabits. I didn't know this feature existed.

I follow a ton (As in Way Too Many) forums, newsfeeds, podcasts, and YT channels. My general procedure for reading UU is to hit New Posts and scan down the list for something I might be interested in. After reading what I want, I hit Mark Forums Read. This gives me a clean slate for the next visit. I use the same procedure for several other non-ukulele forums I visit regularly.

It doesn't bother me that folks post in the Word Games, or other non-ukulele threads. I just skip over them. Following my usual procedure, as detailed above, I don't see a lot of perpetual off-topic threads, but there are always a few. Learning about the Ignore feature cuts the scanning time down some. Thanks.