Proposed Feature Request: Muting Users in Discourse
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I'm proposing a feature request here for a mute user functionality in discourse. a lot of people have expressed interest in one, here and on meta.d but have been knocked down as that's not the way to have a civilized community.
That's all well and good but i think that for various reasons there is need to mute individuals, at least temporarily, even in the ,most civilized community so i'm proposing the following spec for muting.
##Part the first: What it means for a user to be muted
Muted users will not generate notifications for:- @mentions
- liking a post by the user that has them muted
- quoting muted user
- sharing a post by the muting user
Muted users will generate notifications automatically marked as read for:
- @mentioning in topic OP
- replying to user directly
- Replying to user as new topic
Muted users posts will not trigger unread topic notifications as their posts will be considered read with 0ms read time as soon as they are posted.
Muted users posts will not be hidden, instead they will automatically have [spoiler] tags applied.
All other user interactions will not be altered
##Part the second: How to mute a user.
Users can be muted in two ways:
- A user action on a post, similar to how one likes, flags, or bookmarks a post can mute a user for UserMuteInTopic length of time (default 24 hours).
- Users can also be muted from their profile for UserMuteInProfile length of time (default 4 weeks).
Once muted the user will remain muted until unmuted by the user or when the mute time runs out. Once a user becomes unmuted, either by user interaction or mute timeout a minimum length of time will be enforced before the user can be remuted (default 1 hour)
Please feel free to chime in on this, I'd like to have a reasonable spec that curbs interaction with annoying users without preventing civilized interactions.
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@pjh, @boomzilla; if you would kindly wikify this post so others can improve the spec before i attempt to float it over at meta.d. thanks!
Done.
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thanks!
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A mere like is insufficient for this. Have a
(Well, most of one, anyway. Sorry, I was hungry. :) )
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Here was what I weighed in on for a muting user feature (excuse the formatting, I'm on mobile):
What I would consider for a feature of ignoring users is:
- I don't see any of their posts in threads (or they're collapsed, so I can toggle them if I want to see them as one-offs)
- Any replies/@mentions/quotes/etc. towards me don't go in my notifications
- Their posts don't show as "unread" in the thread list
- Any topics by them are auto-muted for me
Though as far as the last item goes, they need to fix how topic and category muting works as well.
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collapsed, so I can toggle them if I want to see them as one-offs
This would be ideal, IMHO.
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In retrospect, something similar to showing posts that were hidden by flagging would be acceptable too. But then you need the option to be able to re-hide them (which is currently missing).
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In retrospect, something similar to showing posts that were hidden by flagging would be acceptable too. But then you need the option to be able to re-hide them (which is currently missing).
yes collapsing or like the hidden post sounds very acceptable.
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Autospoiler the post would be nice if it won't actually be hidden
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Excellent idea. I'll add it to the OP
which is a wiki now BTW.
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(default 4 weeks).
harsh default ... I would set it to a week or something. After 14 days I'm pretty sure I would hardly remember why I muted a specific user. Unless he keeps up being an ass. But then you'll have to mute him again.
You speak of a default but I hope you mean that this would be a site option and not a user choice.
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my intention was to make it a site admin choice, yes.
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Could make it exponential.
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The real question is, who would you mute and why? (hello allout flamewar!)
Seriously, I have a feeling this would create sort of cliques and subgroups within the forum. Not sure if it's a good idea. Although, just having more options on what notifications should you receive is a good thing.
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Seriously, I have a feeling this would create sort of cliques and subgroups within the forum.
Don't we have this now? Just kidding, there aren't really enough of us who post regularly for that to be an issue yet.
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this would create sort of cliques and subgroups
That's been the argument against hiding people's posts. I feel like the original proposal, which stopped them from spamming you but left their posts in place in a discussion where they may be taking place, was a nice compromise between "never show me this person" and "they piss me off by mentioning me every post".
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Are spoilers a plugin or default behavior?
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Rely on certain browsers IIRC.
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Yeah. Hiding their posts misses out bits of the topic potentially and won't work when their posts get quoted. Users will end up unhiding them just to see the whole topic IMO.
I think muting notifications like when you mute a post is the best way to do it.
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Spoilers carry over into quotes right?
Or is that a discobug?
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Spoilers carry over into quotes right?
Or is that a discobug?
It'll be an ASDESIGNED as quotes are deliberately unformatted text.
Most people here fix the quotes so that they work as expected, though.
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So a Discobug it is.
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or they're collapsed, so I can toggle them if I want to see them as one-offs
The collapse functionality is already available in the way of deleted posts to admins (and possibly mods.)
This is what I see on http://what.thedailywtf.com/t/advanced-time-management/4420
Note the two "1 post hidden" (they're @PaulaBean's thread hidden/unhidden auto-posts.)
Clicking:
The real question is, who would you mute and why? (hello allout flamewar!)
On here, some people would rather not see any of the bots.
Are spoilers a plugin or default behavior?
Plugin - we had to petition to get it added.
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The collapse functionality is already available in the way of deleted posts to admins (and possibly mods.)
Also available to regular users when filtering a topic to a single users posts, but like with "hidden" posts from flagged users, there's no way to re-hide the posts without refreshing.
...
I need to make a bug topic about my UX bugs on Discourse on iPad, because it's ridiculous how hard it was to get that quote.
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How important is a 're-hide' function? Are you really on a page that long with the unhidden post visible for it to be a problem if the functionality is not there?
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It isn't that big of a deal, but it is frustrating that you can't re hide something like spam. Should be a toggle, not a one and done.
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Just because this happens to me currently, here is how Steam handles muting / blocking users:
JUST TO MAKE IT CLEAR: THIS WILL BE TERRIBLE AND YOU WILL PROBABLY CRY!Prologue:
Imagine the following (because I don't have screenshots)
There are people spamming clickbaits on steam.
I set one of them to "ignore":The Main Act:
1.) The notification:
Oh boy, 4 notification things. Let's click them2.) The notification (in greater detail):
Oh boy, 3 new messages, maybe they are something important (as you can tell by the name of this masterpiece, they are not)3.) The "ErrorMessage"
WTF?To recap:
- you can block users who are annoying (in this case stupid spammers)
- blocking them does nothing as they can still send private messages to you
- Attempting to read the messages fails because said user is blocked
- You cannot dismiss the messages unless you unblock the user, read the messages and reblock them again.
Filed Under: SteamWTFs are.... interesting | Even though Jeff would probably disagree, I do in fact not want to change the steam-community. All I want is to play games and maybe talk to people on steam without getting notified about spammers.
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got it. this is an example of how not to do it!
roger dodger!
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Clarified the post with bold and all caps.
Filed Under: Is there any post in this forum where steam is mentioned without it being stupid?
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Please feel free to chime in on this, I'd like to have a reasonable spec that curbs interaction with annoying users without preventing civilized interactions.
The question is - how are you even going to implement that? You won't get it into Discourse officially, since Jeff says so, and I don't thing we'll want to run on a fork.
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i have no idea, I'm hoping to get it in officially actually. that's why i toned it down to the point that you can't block permamently and all blocking really does is stop the blocked user generating notifications.
allows one to take a step back from an annoying conversation without running into any of the pathological or hostile situations that jeff, rightly in this case, cites when people bring up the subject of muting/ignoring users.
i might get lucky. if not then..... maybe i can do it via a plugin? not sure. it depends on how deep the notification stuff can be touched by plugins.
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The collapse functionality is already available in the way of deleted posts to admins (and possibly mods.)
Yes, I see the same thing as a mod.
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So what does the pool on how long before your request gets closed without an answer look like? Though if you were a little less polite in your phrasing you could have gotten the deleted with no comment option instead.
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well anyone who had money on < 1h is out.
as for the pool i have..... three paperclips, a piece of lint ... and what i'm choosing to call a dead rat (that was @algorythmics's wager)
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Hmm, what random junk do I have on my desk to throw in? Oh, I'll put in a broken extending ID card clip thingy (missing the card clip part) on the outside case that you get at least one response before it gets closed.
Edit: didn't notice bad typing till replied to
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Some similarities to this:
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I wager three paper clips and a staple remover that it gets a minimum of three responses, followed by some variation of "This should be a plugin" before getting closed.
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well @locallunatic gave it one reply. does he count as a TDWTFer?
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I figured I needed to game my bet in the pool of at least one response.
Edit: fixed typo
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Where did it say the replies can't be from TDWTFers? That's changing the rules after the bets have been placed.
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And it got a response from Jeff agreeing with putting @accalia's version in with their "block a user from PMing you".
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:-D
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Only 40% of those likes from TDWTFers, that is pretty good, but it could get better.
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it's the on on the far left that i'm happy about, not sure if discodev cancels out TDWTFer or not (cause he is here lurking a lot)
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I have a small promotional swiss army knife with a nick in the blade.
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looks like i'm ending up with the pot by default. since DasJeff has posted in the topic and he did not close it himself it looks like the topic shall remain unlocked for the duration.
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Don't count your chickens before they're hatched, it can still happen.
Also, up to three replies. Now I just need a "This should be a plugin" then closed.