I always felt like it was wrong to block an account unless it was smth absolutely insane. Nazis etc.
But now I’m blocking people who’s tone I dont like, or who are baiting or actingnin bad faith.
I know I can’t do it as a mod. But i can certainly do it as an individual now. Judgy comment? Blocked. Unnecessarily confrontational? Blocked.
This is new to me, literally 3 days. Wonder how this affects my feed. Only disappointing thing is they can still see and respond to my posts, just that I can’t see it. I wish they couldn’t see anything I posted either.
What are your blocking habits? If you do block a lot of people, has that affected your experience?
I block freely. My time and attention and mental and emotional bandwidth are limited resources, and to the extent possible I intend to spend them carefully.
When I see I have a message/reply in my Lemmy inbox, then open the inbox and see nothing - there is such a relaxing feeling pressing “mark all as read”, knowing I just avoided an annoying interaction from some idiot I’ve blocked in the past.
I tend to ask questions about their opinion until they stop responding.
I like to pretend they’ve realised the absurdity of their own stance.
In reality I’m just easily amused.
I wish there was a hide posts option, rather than a flat out block. There are some overly prolific posters that i would like to block, but their comments are not an issue, just the 40 rapid fire posts they make everyday.
Is me 👉👈
lol no.
of course not, we all respect our local mothfucker
Oh don’t forget how controversial that was too lol
Opposite for me, there are quite a few that I want to see their posts but not their comments.
Ask your admins about that - PieFed has that feature but only admins can do it and it’s instance-wide.
Or even more granular. There’s folks that make a large number of posts that I do like in some comms, and a large number of ones I don’t care about in other comms.
If they’re the main one making low effort posts in the Weevil community or whatever, but everyone else is great, it would be preferable to prune the community for myself instead of blocking it or them.
I still think they’re a net positive for Lemmy and want to interact with them, just we may not like all the same things in the exact same way.
I hardly ever block individual posters, but communities, I’ve blocked 936 of them at the time of making this post. Sports, porn, anime, or furry shit are all block on sight. Plus a handful of randoms that I’m just not interested in.
I’ve finally got All where it’s pleasant to browse. Takes some doing, but worth the effort if you want to customize your feed reductively vs actively seeking out and subscribing to communities.
How about language issues? I dont browse all bc half the time I dont get the languages. Changing the language is apparently buggy on Lemmy.
Also blocking instances doesn’t cut it.
I never even considered using All…
More people need to make use of the curation tools available to them in my opinion. Too often I see people browsing /all and then complain about seeing tons of stuff that they don’t like. There are tools that are available to them to help them create a more pleasant experience that they just aren’t using. The fediverse doesn’t have some algorithm that learns the type of content that you most often engage with and feed it to you, you have to more proactively do the curation yourself.
Just as an example, I was in a conversation with one of the lemmy.world admins a while back. We were talking about instance blocks and how infrequently users actually use them. Across all of the users on lemmy.world, only about 700 of them actually created an instance block for the most-blocked instance (lemmynsfw). Only two instances had more than 500 users block it.
Curation tools is brilliant. Thats what it should be seen as.
Very well put. Also the important point of the lack of learning algorithm.
*curation
I thought lemmynsfw was sort of ‘mass-delisted’ by most instances? In that users from lemmynsfw.com can interact with the wider fediverse but the communities on there don’t display out to other communities - because the issue is the communities there, and not the users.
It’s great for your mental state.
Just be aware of any filter bubble you might create. If you block every person that has an opposite perspective, you’ll fall into your own echo chamber.
>:(
They would be annoyed at this comment if they could see it /s
Just be aware of any filter bubble you might create.
That’s a great point. I block pretty easily, but for rudeness, not for disagreement.
I’ve blocked some assholes that I wholeheartedly agree with, but I just don’t want to read them abrasively support things I believe in.
Blocking is great. I truly wish more people would block. We would be able to all have a more enjoyable experience.
A shared suggested blocklist would be helpful for new users. Growing it organically is the way to go imo but I know some in my life who rawdog the internet w/o ad block without knowing they can do something about it.
If someone needs to be on a shared block list they should be banned.
Been doing this with a warning system. I tag shitty people and block them if I see a person who is tagged acting shitty.
2 years in, no regrets.
People who I notice just dont get jokes and are in 20 different meme communities being all serious? Blocked.
Meanwhile, you using jokes to denigrate groups you don’t like and crying when people righteously call you out on your bullshit:
I have been working in IT for too long. First thought upon reading the title was you were obstructing someone’s work.
I have similar blocking habits. People who will not be enriching my life tend to announce themselves with brain-dead comments, hostility, or starting arguments just for the sake of arguing. I don’t hesitate to block people like that.
Echo chamber time
What are your blocking habits?
I made it through nearly two years and eventually caved after I made the mistake of arguing in favor of the truth, supported by video evidence and a fact check from an internationally recognized fact-checking organization only to be told to “fuck off”, a second user said that they enjoyed pissing on my shoe(s) in their personal fight against truth, and some other catastrophically braindead takes. I generally don’t like the blocking approach for opinions I don’t agree with because everyone has differing views and also people have bad days and that’s just life. However, being actively hostile to the truth and being extremely confrontational about it was a bridge too far for me and it was either blocking a few mouldy potatoes in an attempt to keep things tolerable or getting off the threadi/fediverse so I decided to give the former a whirl.
If you do block a lot of people, has that affected your experience?
Thankfully haven’t felt the need to block many, so the only thing I’ve really noticed is that occasionally one of the blocked users comments in the thread for something I’ve submitted (which I don’t get a notification for and can’t see) - but then someone unrelated replies to them and then I get a notification for a comment chain which I can’t actually load. It took me a while to even figure out why I was getting these “ghost” notifications.
condescending, passive aggressive, or trying to egg you on, is an instant block, or if im nearing an argument, i just block anyways.
Only disappointing thing is they can still see and respond to my posts, just that I can’t see it. I wish they couldn’t see anything I posted either.
I’ve seen this view in discussions of blocking before and it really bugs me. You’re desiring to unilaterally control what I can see and do on the Fediverse.
This is how it works on Reddit and it’s a terrible mechanism. It means you can preemptively ensure that anyone who might refute misinformation will be excluded from your threads before you post them. It means you can step into a conversation I’m having with someone, derail it, and then prevent me from responding to your derail. Over on Reddit by far the most common use I see of the block tool is to get the “last word” in on whatever argument is going on, posting some sort of seemingly clever comeback and then instantly blocking me before I can point out the flaws.
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/
I don’t understand this view either. What’s it to ya? You cant see what the person does anyway. There doesn’t seem to be a point behind it besides control.
Also, it simply is difficult to implement. You have to tell every server “do not show my posts and comments to these accounts”. Other servers can just choose to ignore that. It’s centralized thinking to believe the “feature” will work all the time.
Sounds like something a sea lion would say.
on reddit people have been scorched for blocking and reporting, you can get banned for reporting too many times, or if the specific mods in a sub deems you “report too much”. i block most of the time, instead of reporting. reddit has way too many bots and trolls, propaganda to block them all. the point of blocking is to get rid of trolls and propaganda comments, dont want them to keep harassing you, or using different accounts.
I have blocked people on reddit who have stalked me.
You’re saying that they should be able to continue to do so?
Blocking and them not seeing what you write is not an adequate defense to that anyway. If someone wants to stalk you, they can just not log in at all. You’re posting in a public place that everyone can see. Because of that, blocking only makes sense in one direction.
Of course you shouldn’t be stalked, but the proposed way to combat that is just useless.
No, he’s pointing out the severe issues with the system at scale. If someone is stalking you on Reddit, that sounds more like a “this user should be banned” issue.
I just tag the worst assholes and then simply not engage next time.
I’m more on mastodon and their filter system is so nice
I made a filter for “idiot did a thing” and every time the news has another article about how some idiot whose name is on my list did something again, as they do, because that’s all they’ve been doing for 20 years, I no longer have to read it.
But I still get the little “something was blocked, click here to read it” thing, so it’s very satisfying.
I don’t block often, but I would expect it’s a similar upgrade.













