The "ignore" function.

[DarkPhenyx]

What a stupid and childish way of "defending" your point of view. The cyber equivalent of sticking your fingers in your ears and saying loudly "na, na, na, I'm not listening to you, na, na, na". :roll" Puh-lease.

"I don't like what you said so I'm going to put you on ignore." "You don't agree with me so I'm going to put you on ignore." "You dared to question my Deity inspired position on this issue, so I'm going to put you on ignore." "Your opinion is counter to mine and I can't refute your argument so I'm going to put you on ignore so I can laugh at you and pretend to feel superior."

What are we? 3 years old?

If your position is so weak, your ability to debate so poor, or your convictions so in danger of crumbling that your only recourse is to pound the ignore button then perhaps there are other things you should be thinking about instead.

Ignoring alternate points of view, refusing to admit they might be wrong, and refusing to look outside their own myopic and bigoted little world is something we rightfully accuse our conservative opponents of, and we joyfully deride them for it. Why would we ever want to be like them when it comes to our own version of myopia and bigotry?

[Political_Junkie]

1. Well said

.

[NMDemDist2]

2. who's ignoring you DarkPhenyx?? n/t

[DarkPhenyx]

12. Several folks.

As you can tell I'm heartbroken about it too. I'm actually surprised at a couple of the folks I've learned have me on ignore. I wouldn't have thought it of them, know what I mean?

[NightTrain]

35. There's a way of knowing if somebody has you on Ignore?

May I ask what it is?

[DarkPhenyx]

45. Not that I am aware of.

I think it is also "against the rules" to brag about having "so-and-so" on ignore, or something like that. Breach of civility I think they call it.

[NightTrain]

47. Then how do you know that several people have you on Ignore?

Did they tell you so? I'm just curious.

[DarkPhenyx]

48. Yes, they told me directly,

or I have been told indirectly by those they still talk to, but who also talk to me. :) I'm amused about it on a personal level.

[burythehatchet]

51. You don't seem amused

[DarkPhenyx]

53. On a personal level I am.

It's the general practice which I find to be childish and silly. Actually I find it childish and silly when people "ignore" me too, but when applied to me directly I just simply have to laugh at them.

[Guaranteed]

55. Awww geez

Man, half of DU has me on ignore. Be proud of it. It means you're saying something. I like to think of it as "making a difference" LOL.

Anyway, don't worry about it. Find new friends. Those folks sounds like bums.

[sandnsea]

3. Nonsense

I don't let idiots in my house, I don't need to let them on my computer. I don't have many people on ignore, but I like to enjoy my time on this forum and nutbags need not be tolerated.

[DarkPhenyx]

9. This isn't your house...

...and you took your computer out to play with it. If you find a kid in the sandbox don't play with him. If someone in a forum is annoying don't read their stuff.

As George Carlin once said about people wanting to censor the radio "hey, these things have two knbs on them! One, cahnges the channel, the other turns it off! Then again I guess you aren't comfortable with anything that has knobs on it."

I only ever put one person, under two different screen names, on ignore. It was becasue in 20 minutes he racked up more posts than I did in 5 months, and started more threads than I have in my entire time on DU. I couldn't see any of the honest threads for all the crap he had poseted trying to shut DU down. He was Tombstoned the same day.

[sandnsea]

30. I don't play with them

I put them on ignore. :shrug:

[DarkPhenyx]

33. Which...

...as I said before, is a less than adult response to take.

[Catch22Dem]

4. Absolute crap

The two people who are on my ignore list are complete fucking morons. I never debated with them because it was pointless. Your rationale for why people end up on ignore lists is COMPLETELY wrong. It's not because I had weak positions and couldn't back them up. It's because they were in EVERY thread I wanted to read and they never, NOT ONCE, had anything to contribute. Why waste my time reading that shit?

Sorry man, you're just wrong.

[DarkPhenyx]

10. Unfortunately I am right.

If they had nothing to contribute then don't read their posts. It's a far more mature and rational response.

[Snoggera]

11. Most annoying responses

come from posts apparently made by rational people.

Ignore comes into play, probably, with those responses.

If it was just original posts, then those can be whisked away easily also.

[DarkPhenyx]

15. So it's annoying?

What makes it annoying then? Is it that it runs counter to what you believe is right? Does it cause you to have to question your own position, or at least defend it? If so then this confirms my original statements.

[Catch22Dem]

16. I got sick of reading them

over and over. it was the same droning nonsense. why on earth would I read that shit if I don't have to. If there's an thread posted on DU that I don't wanna read, I don't click on the link. It's an easy choice to make. Same with ignore. If I know this person has nothing to say, I don't have to read it. I made that choice. Don't give me shit for it though.

[DarkPhenyx]

24. Which would lead into my point that...

...you don't have to read them. Don't read the threads, don't read the posts. Pretty simple.

Debate, which is part of why most of us are here, is going to be annoying on occassion. It takes long strings of posts that seem go nowhere. Been there lots of times. Then, suddenly, you get somewhere. Common ground is found. An endstate reached. Amazing no?

By coming to DU you have already decided to exclude an entire set of people with vaild points of view and different ideas on what the solutiuon is. Here's a shocker for you. They aren't always wrong. Now you make the decision to further restrict you access to alternate views?

With so many of our elected officials adopting the same "bunker mentality" it's no wonder the country, and the world, is going to shit.

[burythehatchet]

52. What's the difference between not reading their response

and not reading their response?

:shrug:

[Snoggera]

5. I don't use it, BUT

you discuss putting on someone on ignore because your debate may be not up to snuff, or convictions not strong enough. I don't think that is the reason why people do it. It probably isn't because they are weak-kneed or fearful of expanding on their positions.

I would guess it is mostly used to stop what is perceived as either personal attacks or attempts to change the focus of the thread. I know, there is the alert button, but some posters occasionally get carried away with pushing their views to the point that it gets extremely annoying (present company excluded . People do get carried away, and I would guess it is easier to tune out the "noise" and read the posts that provide information rather than try to inflame emotions.

[DarkPhenyx]

13. I also dislike the "Alert" function...

...though I have become a bit more willing to use it. :shrug:

[sandnsea]

31. The beauty of ignore

Is that you don't have to use alert. And I'd much rather let people go on about their business and enjoy their DU experience. Works well for everybody. Except the other people who won't put them on ignore!

[DarkPhenyx]

34. And you remove any possibility that...

...you might learn something. Please reference my post about the country going to shit.

[sandnsea]

37. At my age

My blood pressure is a whole lot more important than the off chance that I might learn something from somebody who has done nothing but post crap to further personal agendas. And that's the reason they go on ignore.

Besides, I learn most of what I learn at DU in LBN, along with the answers in those posts. And usually there's not an ignore in the batch. Interesting, don't you think?

[DarkPhenyx]

39. Not horribly interesting no.

If LBN is all there is to learn in the world then it is truly a sad place.

[sandnsea]

43. And the responses

The rest of DU is pretty much a rehash of LBN. Sorry. But at least you know nobody has YOU on ignore.

[DarkPhenyx]

44. I know for sure people do.

Proud of it in fact. :)

Yes, and the responses. Still a pretty sad world.

[Kanary]

6. "People" who can only call names and insult.....you bet, ignore for them

Healthy people have healthy boundaries, and don't have a need to hang around with obnoxious ones.

Kanary

[x-g.o.p.er]

7. Nice post

Well put

[Deja Q]

8. With freedom comes responsibility

Your ascertation is spot-on.

But there will be abusers.

The aforementioned maxim can be applied anywhere. And it's amazing what little responsibility some people have with their freedom. I'll spare everybody the lecture on corporate america for once, however. :-(

[rumguy]

14. agreed

[Selwynn]

17. You do things your way, I'll do things mine.

I don't have anyone on ignore right now, but I reserve the right to put anyone who is excessively hostile or continuously personally insulting on ignore.

I don't think putting someone on ignore is any more childish that getting into a 500 post long flame war that serves no purpose.

[DarkPhenyx]

26. How do you know the flame war serves no purpose?

More often than not the ones I find myself in end up leading somewhere. It takes time to get there but so what? There have even been a few people that, over the course of multiple flame fests, have finally begun to see what I have been saying and at least admit that my POV is valid, and not at all what they originally thought.

[m-jean03]

18. I got put on ignore for a complete and utter

misunderstanding. The poor dingbat PMed me a nasty message and then put me on ignore, so I couldn't even nicely explain why she had misunderstood. Heck, she couldn't have even heard me if I had apologized! Which I was willing to do!

It definitely gets abused
:shrug:

[Catch22Dem]

20. Of course it does

And you're right. I would never ignore someone based on some silly misunderstanding. Not at all. The two who are on mine got put there after MONTHS of reading their shit. Finally I thought, ya know, I don't have to read it any more. No harm no foul. I haven't seen "ignored" come up in a thread in a very long time. I'll have to see if those two ended up getting tombstoned. I doubt it though. Both of them had been here for quite some time.

Note, it wasn't a difference of opinion. It was to keep my own BP at a resonable level.

[RC]

19. I only have one person on Ignore.

Some ego who treated DU as a sports BBS. He even hijacked threads for his first love. Put him on Ignore and haven't missed him since.

[supernova]

21. Feeling ostracized, bunky?

I'm sure some people have me on ignore too.

For what it's worth, I've only ever ignored one person. Mostly if a thread is full of stuff I don't enjoy, I don't post.

[DarkPhenyx]

27. Naaaaaaaaaaaaaa, not at all.

Just voicing my opinon on something. I treat every ignore against me as a badge of honor.

[gottaB]

22. na na na na na na, I can't hear you

oh, wait a sec...

:silly:

[VelmaD]

23. You know this is one of those things...

we TOTALLY agree on. I've never put anyone on ignore and I don' tplan to start.

I'm perfectly capable of not reading posts from people I think are idiots. And the ones I disagree with or fight with...well, I want to know what they have to say, either for amusement value or so I can go tear them a new one. :evilgrin:

[Guaranteed]

56. Hee hee

Yeah, gotta be able to see the fresh meat.

[tjwash]

25. I don't know how many Usenet veterans there are here, but...

...sometimes kill-filing people is a necessity. And it's not childish at all. There was one complete nutcase that comes to mind, who used to post on "talk.politics.misc", that would write ENDLESS paragraphs of ranting, paranoid garbage in response to each and every post made, regardless of whether it was addressed to him or not. Another TPM poster, would come out with streams of death threats and in the process use the most vulgar language doing so. And of course there is MY personal favorite, made famous by Mike at winternet, filibuster. Although filibuster was very cute when he got mad, so I would not kill-file him very often. So no, even though I have yet to "ignore" anyone at DU, I really don't look down on anyone who would use the feature;.

[MrSandman]

28. Gotta agree...

If the thread gets that bad, I will put it on ignore, but posters, well even a blind squirrel finds an occasional nut.

[Failure]

29. we could clear the air by saying who we all have on ignore...

LMFAO

[DrWeird]

32. What did you say...

to piss whoever it was off so much.

I once accidently hit the ignore button and didn't know who it was. I could have taken that person off ignore immediately, but I figured it would be more fun to try and figure out who it was by seeing which posts they responded too.

[arwalden]

36. Half Of My "Ignore" List Has Already Been Banned...

I figure the other half will eventually get banned as well... I just beat Skinner to the punch by ignoring them first.

I don't believe that one's use of the ignore function has any correlation to one's ability to defend their positions. It has to do with how much crap one is willing to put up with from the crap-givers.

I'll put up with a lot of crap, but I have my limits.

-- Allen

[sandnsea]

38. I think I've got 1 left

The rest are either banned or have stopped posting. At one point I bet I had 20 people on ignore. Now they're all gone. Weird, huh?

[DarkPhenyx]

41. I can think of several folks who...

...have said that about me. The ones that didn't put me on ignore eventually found out that they agree with me, sometimes, an even learn something, occassionally.

In the interim their blood pressure gets a workout, and they do tend to cuss a lot. In the end I like to think it's worth it though. I've been through the same thing myself with them, and others.

[Whitacre D_WI]

40. Actually, it's not ignoring points of view.

It's ignoring individual people.

I only have two people on ignore. They are individuals whom I can not abide, personally. I have NOTHING against wither of their points of view. I just want to come to DU to be happy, not to see some jerkwads spoiling the fun.

So I ignore them. Screw it. They are not worth getting worked up over.

[Redneck Socialist]

42. Nah, it has its uses

I only have two people on ignore and they are both irritating blow hards, one note johnnys who never, and I mean never, change their tune. Those two little clicks of the mouse have saved me much aggravation.

[Endangered Specie]

46. Did someone start a thread here?...lol

[Something Blue]

49. The ignore feature is

the most valuable feature DU has to offer. Period.

And as someone else stated, it not about shutting off points of view, it's about shutting up individuals.

I've got five people on mine. All of them are vermin. I'm not missing anything.

[DarkPhenyx]

50. By shutting up people...

...you are shutting off points of view. You cannot do one w/o the other.

[Something Blue]

54. Respectfully,

I disagree. There are others out there who post and express the same positions and arguments without resorting to scatological commentary, insults, excessive bile, and a manner of posting that keeps the letter of the board's rules while violating their every spirit. If I had the liberty of pointing to examples, it would be clearer but obviously that's not possible.

On a more personal note - I have a limit on how much abuse I'll withstand before I leave or strike back. Leaving is being chased out. Striking back will get me thrown out. Both of those options are unappealing to me.

I did worry that your assertion may be correct, though. So, a couple of times I switched all the ignores off and peeked. Each time, my original decision was reinforced. I didn't lose anything. I'm not missing anything. And I'm probably delaying my first heart attack by at least a few minutes. :)