Quote:
Originally Posted by Billi
But in my mind the idea of ignoring certain users contradicts the core sense of a forum. A forum works fine when you have many posts and when you have many lively discussions, that means many different or opposite opinions. And with the ignore function you reduce both for yourself. Is it really such an interesting thing to read only posts with your opinion from members you like?
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Bluntly put, there are in any forum dicks. It's a fact of life. This has nothing to do with what opinions they present -- in fact, there are a couple here on MobileRead who agree with me, and make me wish they didn't. It has everything to do with their actions and their style: they're dicks.
I enjoy having many posts, I enjoy lively discussions, and I enjoy different or opposite opinions. For the love of God, look at who I am! Have you ever seen me back down from an argument, or indeed not wade directly into one, words swinging? I don't want to read only posts with my opinion nor from members I like. But that
doesn't mean I want to deal with the dicks. MobileRead is my leisure, not my vocation, and it should not be a source of suffering.
My personal choice is just to not read the threads that have attracted such people. Ignore doesn't work very well (the quote issue) and, being the insatiably curious person I am, I keep wondering what I'm missing; after all, the dicks aren't dicks
all the time, or they'd be banned. I have to ask you, though, is my non-participation in a thread an
improvement? Does it make a thread better if I abandon it to save my blood pressure? Dicks or me -- pick one. Which do you prefer? (if you think I
am a dick, please don't answer!)
I am not going to read posts that leave me wailing and gnashing my teeth, and trying to get my blood pressure down into a mere three figures. I participate in MobileRead because I enjoy it, and dicks destroy that enjoyment (as, in many cases, they intend to do). So I avoid the threads that such people infest. Does that really improve the threads? What is the alternative -- that I be forced to read blood-pressure-spiking posts from people who are only trying to get a rise out of others? Would that make this forum a better place?
If you would use a good ignore function to "read only posts with your opinion from people you like" that says more about you than it says about us. Anyone who would do that probably isn't contributing much anyway. And as for the rest of us, we'd really just rather not have to deal with the dicks.