Beta testing ignore. If you want to ignore stuff, let me know.

Between meetings I've been writing the ignore features.

Generally, ignore should make a site feel smaller and more tuned to what you're interested in.

It does this by:

1. Hiding forums you're ignoring (and all the stuff in them)
   
2. Hiding conversations you're ignoring
   
3. Hiding events you're ignoring
   
4. Hiding people you're ignoring (and silencing any comments they've written, PMs they send you or mentions/replies, etc)
   
   

At the moment, 90% of the backend has been written for this, but none of the front-end has been written.

Meaning that I can add an ignore easily, but you can't view any list of things you're ignoring and you cannot un-ignore things.

So if you're happy with a one-way, irreversible ignore, then for testing purposes I will add these for 10 people.

If you want to be one of the 10 people, know that I need you to proactively tell me when the ignore feature fails... i.e you see something you thought would be hidden.

If you're cool with that, then you need to send me a list of things and their IDs, for example:

• Conversation 54564
  
• Forum 654
  
• Forum 456
  
• Profile 49813
  
  

I'll allow 10 people, 1 chance to send me a list of things that they want ignored.

When I'm done, I'll update this post to let people know that we're done and the testing is underway.

To those 10 people... please ignore stuff that you would definitely notice if it got through. This testing is useless if you wouldn't notice.

Following... Wait is that wrong?

This is a wonderful thing. With judicious use the jokes thread now contains things that make me smile.

Poor Joe.

Is the scope of user-ignore current-cosm or *-cosm? A user might behave differently on LFGSS versus the Bike Instructor microcosm.

Would it be possible to ignore posts by a user in a forum where they're particularly upsetting/wearing but preserve their posts in other sections, or vice-versa?

Use case 1:
Ignore brklss riders in the bike-tech sections where they are beyond help or their input is devalued, but still enjoy their contributions in General, Misc, Classifieds...

Use case 2:
Ignore a trollish user everywhere but Polo.

We haven't scoped it too excessively.

If you ignore a person, then that person is ignored across the whole site.

If you ignore a conversation or event, that the item is ignored (along with all comments within it) even if it gets moved to another forum.

If you ignore a forum, then everything in the forum is ignored.

What we haven't done is add complexity in the form of "this person within that conversation", "that person in this forum", "this event only when it's in that forum".

It's powerful in how well it works, but it isn't complex.

All that said... forum owners can ban someone from a given forum without them being banned from the whole site. So if someone is being disruptive in just one part of the site, they can be excluded from that part of the site without it harming their contributions elsewhere.

@WillMelling

You can ask to ignore some people.

Just going to clarify a few things.

What happens when you ignore:

• a person:
  
  • the profile is hidden within profile lists
    
  • any comments that they author are not shown to you
    
  • any private messages they send you will disappear in the ether
    
  • any notifications and updates triggered by their activity won't appear on your following screen
    
  • BUT... you will still see forums, conversations, events and PMs that they have created. You will also still see "last posted" things at the end of forums and items as a result of this person's activity. You are ignoring the person, not necessarily the containers they've created and as all of those things would mean ignoring lots of stuff by other people, you still see those things. Each of those things is individually ignorable on it's own.
    
• a conversation or event:
  
  • the item is hidden within forums, searches, the following and today pages (along with all comments within them)
    
• a forum:
  
  • the forum is hidden on the home page, searches, the following and today pages (along with all items within them)
    
    

You cannot ignore a private message, but you can delete it (to stop receiving any further items within it) and you can ignore a specific person (to never view the comments that they make within a PM and to exclude them from contacting you).

Excellent work, David, thanks. The function was much missed.

All I want to know is if there is a way to ignore everything that is normal and healthy.

I'm mentally ill and reading only what I'm supposed to belong will make me feel normal and healthy.

So, I did let you know.

Conversation 54564
Forum 654
Forum 456
Profile 49813

How do I fing the numbers for the items I want to ignore? Ok if I just send the names?

find.

You don't need to (anymore) - there's now a spangly new button in the right hand column of whatever it is you wish to ignore with the force of a thousand suns.

Lol. Half asleep. Sorry for the unnescessary PM Velocio xx

I'm going to ignore this thread so my feed stops reminding me of my stupidity.

It's OK, everyone else can still see it.

Well, maybe not everyone....

@Velocio
How do you unignore things or people?

You can still view ignored things by visiting them directly, and doing so gives you the unignore button.

However, as the ignored items are not listed anywhere you have an issue... and this is an issue the /ignored/ page solves.

Visit your /ignored/ page, which is accessible via your profile (like your notification settings) and you will see a list of all things that you are ignoring grouped by the type of thing it is and the name of it.

From there you can go through to the thing you are ignoring and unignore it.

Brilliant. Got to say it has improved my lfgss experience.

Ignore seems to be fairly heavily used already.

Most ignored conversation: The Islamic State by a clear lead (followed quite far behind by Football and then equally the Day Z and Car Appreciation).

Most ignored forums: Equally held by all of the area forums (Manchester, Cambridge, etc) as 18 people ignore all of those.

Most ignored profiles: That would be telling.

The thing about ignored profiles, the most ignored profile is only ignored by 6 people, the second most by 5 people, third most by 3 people. Even the most ignored profile is ignored less than any ignored forum, and far far less than the ignored conversations.

Most people ignore very specific conversations, or forums, and hardly anyone actually ignores a profile.

I guess the thing I take from this is that people are already using ignore to silence the noise by removing things they're not interested in... either whole forums or topics. The topics are ones that seem to annoy people, whereas ignoring forums seems to be about removing things that people just aren't bothered about (and that puts things they are interested in on the front page).

Conclusion: The forum is too big without ignore... people use it to make the forum smaller.

@Velocio, go on, tell

Most ignored profiles: That would be telling.

Well you're #4 if you want to know.

Must try harder.

Heh. That's only 2 people ignoring you though.

As I say, the numbers are too small to be significant.

At least with forums and conversations the low number of things ignored, and the fact that they are ignored by tens of people at least can be interpreted half-meaningfully. But profile ignores are frankly so few that they aren't meaningful.

Yesterday I wondered whether there should be some kind of automatic ban when n% of the forum ignores someone. But I'm not sure that anyone would ever be ignored enough to ever even reach the 1% mark... so even though I had lots of concerns about the value of such a thing, it would never take effect anyway.

People just don't really ignore people. It's the edge case, a small minority only.