Seriously what's that idea?
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Because the alternative is easily abused, see all the issues Reddit has with this type of block mechanism.
The core of the problem as I see it is, this gives every user limited moderation powers in every sub, the extent of that power is determined mainly just by how much they post and comment (blocked users can't comment under their posts, and can't reply to any comment in a chain started by the blocker), and the extent to which it is happening is invisible to most users. People advocating for this seem to assume it will be used mostly defensively, to prevent harassment, but the feature has way more utility offensively, and it's totally unaccountable. If there is something someone is saying (not even necessarily to you) that you don't like for whatever reason, whether or not it's against the rules and regardless of what anyone else thinks about it, you can partially silence them by blocking and then working to get engagement in the same spaces they comment in. Think about if this was implemented on Lemmy, lots of communities have only one or a few people making all the posts, if one or more of them blocked you that's almost the same as a ban. It doesn't make it better that the people making those posts are often also moderators, because it would be a way to pseudo ban people without it showing up in the mod log.
Moderation of online discussion spaces should be transparent and accountable, it shouldn't be a covert arms race between users.
The current system doesn't stop that version of abuse though it just means it can only happen in the opposite direction. The abuse you're implying still occurs.
Seems to me you shouldn't be able to reply directly but you should be able to see the comments that way you could reply elsewhere in the thread if you want. Or the other people in the comment chain even.
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they're not harassing you in your spaces, and your communities.
They would be, though. That's exactly what they're saying could happen - you just wouldn't be able to see it. In effect, what they described is exactly what you're claiming to be a problem, except worse because it's exclusively in control of the harasser.
so then whats the solution here? I'm assuming you want harassment to stop.
so the reddit way is a problem because the victim can't see it.
so the solution is to provide a way for the victim to not be able to see it, without actually stopping the harassment?like... i dont get it. how is that an improvement? at least with the reddit way, the victim can put up hurdles to prevent the harasser from coming into their comments and flooding them with foul shit.
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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
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It sounds like what you want is for moderators to ban people for you, which they will do if you report them and the moderators agree that what they are doing is unwanted in the community.
I would like that, except moderators are already overworked without being forced to stay up to date on all the current dogwhistles.
and the lemmy community in general is too small in general to sustain a healthy pool of mods.
how fast can mods realistically respond to reports?What if I want an alternative where I'm fine with them being in the community as long as they stay away from my content?
what I dont care what the mods say, I dont want them to be able to say things that I find hurtful to my friends in the comments of my posts? -
so then whats the solution here? I'm assuming you want harassment to stop.
so the reddit way is a problem because the victim can't see it.
so the solution is to provide a way for the victim to not be able to see it, without actually stopping the harassment?like... i dont get it. how is that an improvement? at least with the reddit way, the victim can put up hurdles to prevent the harasser from coming into their comments and flooding them with foul shit.
at least with the reddit way, the victim can put up hurdles to prevent the harasser from coming into their comments and flooding them with foul shit.
How? One new account that blocks the victim and it's exactly what you're arguing against, except now the user doesn't get the choice to ignore it or fight back. It's completely invisible to them.
With how it works here, it's the victim's choice to endure it or isolate themselves from it. Do you not see how that's better?
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so then whats the solution here? I'm assuming you want harassment to stop.
so the reddit way is a problem because the victim can't see it.
so the solution is to provide a way for the victim to not be able to see it, without actually stopping the harassment?like... i dont get it. how is that an improvement? at least with the reddit way, the victim can put up hurdles to prevent the harasser from coming into their comments and flooding them with foul shit.
To be clear I'm not saying it's a solution, just that the proposed solution isn't actually one, either. At the end of the day, it's not possible to both do what OP is asking for and not also make block lists public, so it's all academic at this point.
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you are (I know this is a shock) not the center of society. your ability to harass people without repercussion is a bug, not a feature.
This is not harassment. If you feel otherwise please use the tools provided and report.
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They would likely not like or agree with what the moderator decided, as moderators are ether fairly hands off unless needed or hated by the community. They want the ability to police others just due to them conversing with them.
god you keep being like "dont put words in the mouths of others" and you cant help doing it yourself, can you?
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The current system doesn't stop that version of abuse though it just means it can only happen in the opposite direction. The abuse you're implying still occurs.
Seems to me you shouldn't be able to reply directly but you should be able to see the comments that way you could reply elsewhere in the thread if you want. Or the other people in the comment chain even.
I do think it would be less bad if it only prevented direct comment replies, and not replies to top level posts or replies to other comments by other people further down the thread.
I don't understand what you mean by it still occurs in the other direction though. Nobody can prevent people from commenting except moderators and admins, which is how it should be. Mute style blocking isn't moderation because it doesn't affect anyone's ability to comment, it's effectively the same as a client level filter.
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yeah, me wanting to be a mod is totally consistent with my view, that I have expressed here, that mods are both overworked and ineffective.
whats that? i didnt say it to you? no way! its almost like you created a crazy version of me in your head and accuse me of things based on it!They are not overworked and ineffective, at least not all. And no people can make conclusions on others based on their actions and words, you are not able to stop that.
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I mean...
I am describing a technical reality of how lemmy works.
You can 'disagree' with that, but uh, you would just be wrong.
Not in the sense of 'I do not have enough empathy to consider the plight of a regularly harassed person'.
More in the sense of ... ok, then don't use lemmy, if you don't like how it works.
Or... make it work the way you want it to work, by actually coding it.
Like, I wasn't joking when I basically said 'I am reasonbly confident it is impossible to make lemmy work the way you want it to.'
Thats not my opinion, in a... how should things work in an ideal world, sense of 'opinion'.
It is my opinion, as a person who understands a bit (certainly not all) about how the code just actually works.
If you can figure it out, I'd be impressed.
Alternatively, if you'd like to pay me $50 an hour to attempt to develop that, I may have some room in my schedule.
I know, i had a whole discussion about this 2 years ago, which is why I changed my mind about this very topic (I used to be very much "things are public by default, no expectation of privacy in a social network).
but that doesn't make it good. this is a problem with the design of lemmy IMO. Lemmy is the best popular option we have right now, and unfortunately popularity is important. Lemmy is already a ghost town, i cant imagine moving to an even smaller alternative.
better than reddit, but far from perfect.
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i mean, i've linked you to the conversation I had.
have you tried to talk to anyone about it? or are you just some white dude confidently saying that nobody should change anything because it works for you, so it should work for everyone else?
because you really sound like that.
i mean, i’ve linked you to the conversation I had.
You have? I must have missed it, could you re paste it?
have you tried to talk to anyone about it? or are you just some white dude confidently saying that nobody should change anything because it works for you, so it should work for everyone else?
Odd, not sure what you are getting at. Talk about what? Are you sure you are replying to the right person. Also please continue to try and guess my gender, race, and world view, since it is clear you want to paint me in a way that you can disregard my statements. You wish to make me less then human, so please do.
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They shouldn't be able to do that!
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).
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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.
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it prevents you from responding to it
it doesn't prevent you from responding. you're free to respond to everything else. you wouldn't be anywhere close to being silenced.let me rephrase, i'm open to learning about your suggestion. I don't really understand how that'd work. It sounds kinda like bluesky blocklists, where the blocklist maintainers are effectively like cross-community mods. A user wouldn't be banned in a given community, but if they're in a blocklist you subscribe to then as far as you're concerned they are (because they couldn't see your content and you couldn't see theirs).
if you're talking about something more lenient then that, then I'd need to know details. but the point I was making is that I'm open to alternatives - I'm not married to reddit style blocking, I know it has problems, i just find the problems to be less severe than the lemmy styleblockingmuting. -
I do think it would be less bad if it only prevented direct comment replies, and not replies to top level posts or replies to other comments by other people further down the thread.
I don't understand what you mean by it still occurs in the other direction though. Nobody can prevent people from commenting except moderators and admins, which is how it should be. Mute style blocking isn't moderation because it doesn't affect anyone's ability to comment, it's effectively the same as a client level filter.
Well think about it, you say it's abuse because someone can use blocking to change how conversations work right? They can make replies the other person can't respond. That same thing can still happen. Yeah harass someone to the point they block you and then you continue to harass them by making replies that they can't see and changing how the conversation of this forum works. It's the exact same thing. Just opposite direction.
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it prevents you from responding to it
it doesn't prevent you from responding. you're free to respond to everything else. you wouldn't be anywhere close to being silenced.let me rephrase, i'm open to learning about your suggestion. I don't really understand how that'd work. It sounds kinda like bluesky blocklists, where the blocklist maintainers are effectively like cross-community mods. A user wouldn't be banned in a given community, but if they're in a blocklist you subscribe to then as far as you're concerned they are (because they couldn't see your content and you couldn't see theirs).
if you're talking about something more lenient then that, then I'd need to know details. but the point I was making is that I'm open to alternatives - I'm not married to reddit style blocking, I know it has problems, i just find the problems to be less severe than the lemmy styleblockingmuting.I'm not a Bluesky user so I haven't seen this in operation first hand, but yeah, that sounds similar to what I have in mind.
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oh hey, fuck you
here is part of the conversation I had where I was convinced. Forgive me for not remembering all of the specifics, it was 2 years ago, and I failed to ask for the credentials as a minority. It took me a while to search it up.
the conversation wasn't just about blocking, it was about how private social networks should be. I was saying that they should be default public, and users should have no expectation of privacy, and then this person explained how problematic that is for people who get persecuted, and why simply muting problematic people isn't sufficient.
The whole conversation is branching IIRC so just walking up the context one comment at a time might not give the full story.can I explain it like they did? no. I'm not a minority, and this conversation was fucking 2 years ago. I've explained it the best i could, but since you think I'm lying or (god forbid) engaging in a post on hexbear, then you can go and fucking read the conversation for yourself. If you're not happy with their explanation, feel free to necro the post, but it was enough to convince me that just saying "shit is public and you can't expect to be able to prevent people from interacting with your content" isn't sufficient.
Ah thanks for sharing the source!
Really that is helpful.
so as ada (the person you are claiming has shown you the light) said:
The Fediverse though, even though it has hate filled cesspits, gives us tools that put barriers between vulnerable groups and those spaces. The barriers are imperfect, they have booked holes and be climbed over by people who put the effort in, but they still block the worst if it.
In fact reading this I don't think ada (we could just ask them) would take the same position as you on this. They are talking about overall systems and that public systems are not safe for people who have to hide their identity (I don't 100% agree but do see the point). I would not try to put words into their mouth, and I would not use a conversation from 2 years ago in vague memory to argue a point.
Actually lets ask them @[email protected] , discourse is healthy after all and like most users on this platform they likely have something of substance to say.
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Nah, in a public discussion, you/authorship isn't the primary concern, the text & interest of the public is primary.
Whether you want to see that text is your liberty.
The liberty of the public, however, is to likewise decide for themselves whether to read the text no matter who authors it regardless of petty disagreements between authors.
Your disagreements aren't ours.Just like in offline public discussions, no one should decide whether the public gets to see a marvelous takedown of text you happened to write just because you disagree with the author of that spectacular takedown.
I disagree that all content on lemmy should be treated as strictly public. I think that there are (or should be) nuance to that.
I realize that federation creates technical challenges to meet that strictly, but a best effort is better than no effort.
for example, I think its reasonable to have communities that are invite-only. AFAIK thats not currently possible in lemmy, but giving a best-effort to make that happen would be better than nothing. Instances known to ignore it could be defederated, clients known to ignore it could be blocked. swiss cheese defense.
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I know, i had a whole discussion about this 2 years ago, which is why I changed my mind about this very topic (I used to be very much "things are public by default, no expectation of privacy in a social network).
but that doesn't make it good. this is a problem with the design of lemmy IMO. Lemmy is the best popular option we have right now, and unfortunately popularity is important. Lemmy is already a ghost town, i cant imagine moving to an even smaller alternative.
better than reddit, but far from perfect.
You entirely missed my point, or just disregarded it.
Yep, it ain't perfect.
... Got any... useful ideas about that?
About how to rework that design?
How we gonna make that happen?
What's the plan?
Or do we just want to agree that perfect would be better than not perfect?
Talk is cheap, most of it is near totally useless noise, hosting all that talk though, facilitating all that blather, in a functional, much less ideal manner... now that's complicated and expensive, and lemmy's budget is basically zero, and all the devs are volunteers.
