Ignore Specific User

The old thread was closed for some reason. The feature would be useful when a certain user\'s lack of civility doesn\'t seem sufficiently grave in the eyes of the moderation to warrant action, but one anticipates that further exposure to that user\'s antics would cause one to lose one\'s nerve and do something unambiguously thump-worthy oneself.

Of course, moderators should be immune, if possible: ignoring a moderator just isn\'t advisable.

There were such tools in the past, and they ended up being abused as a way to shut out people from discussions.

I heard about that, in those exact words in fact, but could you describe the problem in more precise terms? Maybe we can figure out a way of avoiding such an outcome. Such as, instead of making it a script run by users, make it a feature of the site itself; it's not uncommon for sites to have similar filers that one can customize in one's account page. Thus, if the moderation is notified of an abuse, they can disable the function. I know this can seem like unnecessary extra work, but on the other hand there's less work monitoring and thumping uncivil discussion. Whether the balance is negative or positive... I can't tell in advance.

That said, and I'm not asking the question rhetorically, is it so much worse for someone to be shut out of a discussion by their interlocutors, than them being banned from the thread by moderation, that the former needs to remain impossible, while the latter has become valid policy?

If there is enough of a problem with a user that people want to ignore him/her, then we should be notified. Nine times out of ten it's something that should have been reported.

The user I have in mind at this time has religion as his pet issue and debates in an extremely hostile and disrespectful way that I find very hard to tolerate. Apparently he got thread-banned for it before, and he cites it like it's some sort of credential!

Generally, when a user is nasty enough that I want to ignore them, they eventually get themselves banned from the relevant thread, or from OTC, or, quite often, from the fora altogether. But I wish I were able to not have to wait until they get publically excluded by the authorities in order to make a private decision not to be preoccupied with their input.

After all, maybe their behaviour is rule-compliant and I just have thin skin.

Please holler a post or two where you're seeing this, if you haven't already.

WONTFIX, I think. Closing.