I saw the block feature newly added to the PM system. A nice idea, though I'm afraid some people might hit that shield button by accident without looking. I think it could be designed a bit better.

For example, how about a "are you sure you wish to BLOCK this person? Yes / No" prompt? Also, the other thing is, to test it out, I blocked someone I only talked to once a long time ago and am unlikely to talk to again (someone who replied to a natter warning). Well, now that person's singular message has vanished from my PM list... and I can't find anywhere the option to unblock that person.

How about a prominently displayed "blocked users" list, or a notification saying "You have 1 blocked user" and the option to browse the list and unblock whoever, or so on, in case people accidentally block those who they wish to talk to, or they block someone and then later change their mind?

Or maybe the block feature could be made more deliberate? Like, how about at the topright, there could be a "block/unblock users" button, which if clicked on, takes the user to a page where they'd have to list the names of users they wish to block (or delete the names of users they wish to unblock)? That way, any effort to block someone is clearly done on purpose and with full intent.

Another problem: I just used my secondary account to test self-blocking.

Tarkil sent a PM to Tarkil. Tarkil then blocked the sender — the account Tarkil. Tarkil now can't see the PM he sent himself, so the green New Message banner is going to stay for a while. Because Tarkil can't see any PM from Tarkil, he can't unblock himself if there is such a function.

Telcontar sent a PM to Tarkil. Tarkil replied, and Telcontar received that. However, Tarkil can't see the reply he sent; it only shows up in Telcontar's inbox.

Does that make sense? Also, is there going to be a way for me to unblock myself?

edited 8th Jul '12 9:05:38 AM by Telcontar

Thank you for making the feature for us Eddie.

Hm, did I have something to do with this new feature?

My evil hand was at work again.

Feel free to blame me.

*blames lu for what's actually a good and useful feature*

While I can see the use for such a feature, I can't help but feel that it may not be a good idea to allow people to block PM's from staff. At least, there should be some sort of override in place.

Also, the inability to unblock doesn't seem very wise either.

You won't be able to block staff PMs. We already asked Fast Eddie to fix that, but the guy needs his sleep every now and then.

"That" being the ability to unblock, or "that" being the inability to block PM's from staff?

The sentence is a bit ambiguous in that regard, at least as I read it. :(

edited 8th Jul '12 10:21:09 AM by DarkConfidant

The latter, of course.

I'd like to see the former done too. I don't want to accidentally block people and not have any recourse other than trashing this account and starting over. :(

Yeah, while the ability to block people is not a bad idea (I've never been harassed on here, but I can see the use for it), I do think it should be more deliberate and less something people might do by accident, and there should be an easy unblock feature or some "blocked users: 1" or something that leads to the unblock list.

Yes, there should be. But Fast Eddie just made it today. He'll get to tweaking it when he gets online.

Changes:

You can't block staff. A Maintain PM Blocks button has been added. You can't block yourself, unless you send yourself a PM. Have fun with that.

For the record, I love how our userbase looks at a new feature and says "Hmm... I wonder how I can break this."

^Well that's a beta-tester's mindset.

Thanks for the new feature, sir. This should make the P5 job a bit easier.

Excellent. Thanks! All of those changes are very good ones. One more I'd like to see, if possible (I don't know how complicated programming this site is), is a confirmation dialog that says something like "By clicking this, you will block all communication from _______. Are you sure you want to do this?" just so no-one accidentally sees the shield symbol while missing the "block user" above it, thinks "What does this do?" and hits it, then cluelessly wonders why their friend isn't getting back to them anymore. I know it might sound dumb, but I can easily picture that happening. :P

Not going to do that one. Not worth the hassle.

Okay, two things:

Not blocking staff doesn't work. My sock could block me.

While my sock has me listed as blocked, the account still has the new PM banner, only change being that when you access it, the message from the blocked user is not visible. The lingering banner will probably get a lot of complaints.

Those should be closed.

Okay. Maybe a quick message at the top of the screen when it refreshes? Is that easy to program? Like "You have just chosen to block _____. If this isn't what you wish to do, you can unblock them in the Maintain PM blocks section".

Tested, they look fixed. Weeeeeeeee~

Hm, for some reason, I'm still able to block staff members.