So we've currently got two factions engaged in a 2-day-deep flame war. These factions are:
- "Muting is literally Hitler" (MILH). The argument of MILH is that one person, no matter how much she may dread and fear the interactions of others, is duty-bound to accept their comments on her posts because "freedom" or something. Further arguments are that since muting only works on your own posts it's stupid and useless and should go away for that reason also.
- "People Can Walk Away At A Cocktail Party" (PCWCP). The argument of PCWCP is that since Hubski is about conversations between people who seek out conversations with each other, the ability to not suffer conversations with people they are actively avoiding is a huge plus. Further arguments are that douches should really be driven out of the pool and in an environment in which there's no real good way to show disapproval, "mute" is the only way to send a message.
MILH is wrong and PCWCP is right. Let's get that out of the way right now. However, the reasons MILH has come to erroneous conclusions are social and comprehension-based. It might be worthwhile to re-think the syntax of muting. And, since Hubski is a social site that leverages the connections between users, it might be beneficial to provide a little social lubrication towards resolving the MILH-PCWCP wars.
Currently, a user who has been muted sees 'muted here'. A terse statement, to be sure. It also provides no insight as to how or why or what to do about the fact. My guess is it's this way because nobody is really enthusiastic about 'mute' functionality, even its most ardent users. We 'mute' people like flushing the toilet. Nobody really wants to get into the plumbing.
It's not the most positive experience for those staring up from the cesspool. 'Mute' definitely has punitive aspects to it that, for the greater good of the site, could be mitigated a little.
One thing that I hear regularly in these battles is that the process of getting yourself 'unmuted' is unclear. After all, you can't message someone who has muted you (not a bug, a feature). Another thing I hear, reading between the lines, is 'muting' rustles jimmies, hurts feelings and belies the 'social' aspect of the site.
SO HOW BOUT WE FIX IT LIKE THIS
Instead of the terse 'muted here' we currently have, how 'bout
You are muted here. Have you tried apologizing?
Let's turn that "Have you tried apologizing?" sentence into a hyperlink. And when the user clicks on it, they see a list of 'follows' that the muter and mutee have in common - 'mutual friends' if you will that could intercede on your behalf.
I've unmuted maybe 6 people because they've apologized. It's a great feeling. We're friends again, and the process has increased the affinity we have for each other. We've recognized that we're all human, that we all have bad days, and that we often take it out on the wrong people.
Let's streamline that process.
Thoughts?
mk is going to have a great day once he gets back from vacation. Anyway, I like this idea of having additional text a lot. I think it's a lot better than people making posts and generally complaining about being muted, but not doing anything to reestablish ties with the user that muted them. It might be a good way to get people to consider their interactions with others and how it can be viewed from different perspectives instead of just focusing on...themselves I guess. mkr, what do you mean in terms of the language needing something more? Are you referring to adding more to the "Have you tried apologizing?" bit? That's probably a stupid question but I just want to make sure we're on the same page.
Ah, okay. I share that sentiment. I think additional text would be much warmer that just saying "you're muted, nope.". But I'm not sure that apologize is the best way, maybe something along the lines of "would you like to reach out to x?".
It might be that mutees have no idea why a poster does not want them to participate in a discussion. As cgod said here they should get over themselves and move on, but if they feel misunderstood and really really care, then the mutee should be self-fucking-reflective and go back through his previous conversations with the muter and try and figure out where things went wrong. If a person cares about being muted, then do the work, trace it back, and create an apology that is meaningful. Do the work.Would you like to reach out x?"
I like this variation on kleinbl00's excellent idea and here's why:
I will say this: when I mute someone I am on my last straw. (The count's at two and one's a spammer.) HOWEVER, if someone I'd muted reached out to me reasonably politely and asked, I would try my best to give them a civil conversation. I might have to wait on replying to their post for a day or two to calm down and accurately determine what I wanted to say, but I would recognize that the person is willing to have a discussion and potentially work things out. And because of that I would try really, really hard to honor that. I'm not saying it would always work out, but I think this adds humanity to Hubski, which is something we advocate here. I would also be really happy that this work-out was happening in PMs and not in threads. Work things out one-on-one. I've been short with users sometimes and sent them messages, "Hey, nothing personal," or "hey, sorry if that was shitty, life's eating my shorts today." Usually, if you reach out to someone in person, they'll be more understanding.
Peoples burning desire to talk to someone who doesn't want to talk to them mystifies me. I don't know if it's some kind of desire to "Win the Internet" or what. So you might not get to make that decisive point you gnawed into existence through a sleepless night, get over it. If it's really such a great point, make your own post and have a nice chat with people that do want to talk to you. If you feel that you have a lot to bring to the table in regards to a certain persons posts and you really regret the fact that out of all the internet this one teeny tiny portion is off limits to you, try and start a dialog with this person via other users (notice I didn't say apologize, but at least try having a chat). Maybe if things can't be reconciled it will be OK, you will be able to go on with your life, the whole wide world is out there for you to comment on.
They don't want to "talk to someone" they want to shout over them. It's not about connecting to that person, it's about obscuring that person's connection to everyone else. Nothing mysterious about it - this is an "OP" culture where the person generating or linking the content just becomes Victim 1 in the self-reinforcement mill.
Except that's not the case. It's more along the lines of "people's desire to have a conversation with anyone based around what someone who didn't want to talk to them said". Peoples burning desire to talk to someone who doesn't want to talk to them mystifies me.
OMG, well thatchangeseverything!!! No it doesn't, get over it. It's a post on the internet, you can make you own post. The meta drama is more destructive to the community than just taking your lumps and moving on. I'd welcome the MILH faction to group mute me so I can show them how to become happier more well adjusted people.
Correct me if i'm wrong, but does "ignore" only block posts, and not comments? What is wrong with a "mute as comment ignore"? This is probably my favorite solution to this whole mess. - If you mute someone, you won't be able to see their comments, along with the rest of the child reply tree for each of that person's comments. It would be completely invisible to you, and you wouldn't even know it's there. - The person also wouldn't be able to PM you (perhaps we could add a new blocking feature to separate these two things apart). - However, everyone else that hasn't blocked this user can still interact with this user as normal. - The user can even still reply directly to your posts / comments, but the only difference is you'll never see them or get any notification about it. Perhaps we can add a message for the muted user to let them know that you've muted them, and therefore won't ever see the post they're about to post. Insert "have you tried apologizing?" link here. - This way it's still not "OMG censorship!", but you still don't have to deal at all with this user. Everyone wins.
Let's be clear: If I mute you, it's because I don't want your input on my content. This also means: I don't want my friends to see your input. I don't want my enemies to see your input. I don't want YOU to see your input. Your solution is basically "allow X to snark at me behind my back without me knowing."
Check it out: two people I have muted being badged by a third. Can you think of a reason why I should entertain any of their comments on my content?
Lots of people are making pithy, non constructive comments back and forth about this issue. Are those really the comments that are worthy of shunning? By that logic, I think I'd have most people muted here, which wouldn't really allow for much discussion. I believe you should be allowed to block whoever you want from commenting on your content, like this thread here, but as an outside observer reading the discussion about this topic, how am I supposed to interpret the fact that you're muting people who have a different opinion about mute?
Absolutely, 100%, no discussion needed. By filtering them out, the signal-to-noise ratio goes way up. By permitting them, the actual discussion becomes completely derailed. I'm not muting people who have a different opinion about mute. You'll see plenty of dissent with even a cursory glance. I'm muting people who are dicks about it. Do you see the difference?Are those really the comments that are worthy of shunning?
I believe you should be allowed to block whoever you want from commenting on your content, like this thread here, but as an outside observer reading the discussion about this topic, how am I supposed to interpret the fact that you're muting people who have a different opinion about mute?
I think this comment is pretty nonconstructive and dickish, are you going to mute flagamuffin to improve the signal-to-noise ratio? Of course not. You appear to be muting people who dissent and are dicks. Dicks who you agree with, are okay I guess, which seems like a double standard, but it's your post, your rules. CashewGuy made a comment in another post after your discussion broke down around the definition of an apology. Are ideological factions just going to mute each other and talk past one another?
It's non-constructive and dickish. Thing is, flag and I have a long history, get each other, and have had many spirited discussions founded on mutual respect. He's earned my forbearance. So am I going to mute him? No. We have community. You also seem to think that I have some sort of obligation to the universe to permit (even encourage!) people who refuse to have an honest discussion with me to continue to have dishonest discussions with others in posts I made. Why on earth should I put up with that? There's nothing whatsoever preventing CashewGuy from saying "hey, man - I got a little hot under the collar. Let me try again because I actually want to have this discussion." But he's not. He's saying "I did nothing wrong, and an apology is an admission of guilt." He won't even have a discussion about that. So what is he adding to a discussion about reaching out/apologizing? And why am I not absolutely, positively, 100% entitled to be the arbiter of that decision?
I get that this is a small insular community and the mute tool, as it is currently implemented is important for maintaining that and you're "100% entitled to be the arbiter of that decision." You are, after all, the most popular guy here. Nevertheless, I don't think he needs to apologize for being a little hot under the collar. I'm sure you've been hot under the collar as well and nobody expects you to apologize to some plebe who mutes you. I think he makes a valid point: I don't see his discussion as being inherently "dishonest," and perhaps that is the heart of our disagreement; he may make flippant remarks, but who doesn't do that from time to time?Keep in mind, Klein is a major user, and this will thus remove a decently sized portion of the site from my ability to communicate. Was this likely a place I'd communicate with anyway? Perhaps not, as I did not follow Klein. However, the effects are unequal, as being a small user, Klein will likely never see any content I push anyway, and thus can mute me without fear of losing the ability to discuss openly.
And here is where the whole thing comes to splinters: What you think he needs to do is 100% irrelevant to the discussion. It's my content. It's my choice. It's my option to let him say his peace or shut him the hell up. If you want to hear what he has to say, you are 100% within your rights to post "Everyone muted by kleinbl00 - here's your chance to expound on what a douchebag he is" and shout out everybody you want to hear from just to make sure they get the message. In response, I'm 100% in my rights to mute you as well. And then you can all form your own insular, self-reinforcing kleinbl00-hating community and there's fuckall I can do about it. The discussion is abut the value and importance of apology and community building and his viewpoint is that apologies are only ever called for if you're guilty of a crime. I went three rounds with him to discuss that point and the answer was "This is why I stopped trying to have a conversation with you. " So. One of us is trying to see the other's viewpoint. The other is stirring up shit. And since it's my post, I'm the one that gets to use the STFU button. He didn't just make "flippant remarks" he rejected any opportunity for conversation not once, not twice, but three times. If I had a blog, I wouldn't have to put up with that. And since Hubski is built around following people, not subjects, that option is mine here, too.Nevertheless, I don't think he needs to apologize for being a little hot under the collar.
I don't see his discussion as being inherently "dishonest,"
Well, fair enough. I think you make a valid point. I will probably go back to lurking, as this community doesn't seem very welcoming for new participants. Clearly my opinions about anything and everything are 100% irrelevant to your fine community, as you put it. Thanks for letting me respond before muting me.
I agree, I feel like we're having a valuable civil discussion here as well, which is why I felt like your descent into hyperbole seemed hostile and out of place: If you want to hear what he has to say, you are 100% within your rights to post "Everyone muted by kleinbl00 - here's your chance to expound on what a douchebag he is" ... In response, I'm 100% in my rights to mute you as well. ... then you can all form your own insular, self-reinforcing kleinbl00-hating community and there's fuckall I can do about it. I understand I may have misinterpreted your comments, and I certainly don't want to put words in your mouth. I largely agree with you, but I think the whole point is to avoid insular self-reinforcing communities. It's a little disingenuous to frame everyone who thinks that the mute functionality may need to be adjusted are all just trying to stir up shit against you. I like you, I like your comments, and the things you post, but from the get go, you made this post framing it as an us-versus-them mentality, complete with hyperbolic names for each side. I understand the value of using mute to shun community members you don't like, but I question how it could be abused after watching Reddit's decline and manipulation. I've seen accusations of abuse, with varying degrees of merit, in my opinion. Groups certainly have the right to shut out people they don't like, but right now Hubski is really only one group it seems like. To be honest, I've given my opinions, you can read them in my other comments. As someone who obviously isn't intimately familiar with the Hubski community, I've gotten as far down into the weeds of this debate as I feel comfortable going. I'm still undecided as to whether I will increase my contributions here. What you think he needs to do is 100% irrelevant to the discussion. ...
Sure. But a hostile community is worse than an insular community. And here we are: you disagreed, I disagreed, you expressed scorn for my hyperbole, I questioned your scorn and reinforced that the discussion is valuable, and thus we have a useful dialog. It's a back-and-forth thing that people who respect each other do. None of the people I have muted have shown the slightest bit of respect. Without respect, there's no community. I thought you weren't going to put words in my mouth? Here we are disagreeing, and here you are, not muted. Lots of people disagree with me about mute functionality - as I said before, the ones that are muted are the ones that are also dicks about it. We're now two rounds deep in which I make this point, yet you bring it back up again as if you didn't hear me. Go ahead and question. What solid, evidence-based arguments do you care to make? Because then we're having a discussion, not slinging mud. List them and explain why you think they merit. It then becomes a debate rather than slander. "I want you to acknowledge the validity of my opinion without my having to state it." Naw, dawg. If you want to have this discussion with me, you need to have this discussion with me. I'm open to it. I'm patient with it. But you don't get to say "I said this thing to someone else somewhere else, look it up." That's disrespectful. I'm committing the energy to furthering your understanding. I type fast but I can't just empty my head onto the screen. The respectful thing would be to commit your energy to either acknowledging my statements or questioning my arguments. And if I'm not worth my time, ask yourself why you should be worth mine? And there we are, back again, as to why I get to mute people on my own posts.I largely agree with you, but I think the whole point is to avoid insular self-reinforcing communities.
It's a little disingenuous to frame everyone who thinks that the mute functionality may need to be adjusted are all just trying to stir up shit against you.
I question how it could be abused after watching Reddit's decline and manipulation.
I've seen accusations of abuse, with varying degrees of merit, in my opinion.
To be honest, I've given my opinions, you can read them in my other comments.
I'm still undecided as to whether I will increase my contributions here.
Having seen the post by b_b, I suppose this is a moot mute discussion, but I did want to offer you my response to a few of your points, which I hope is okay. I don't wish to be disrespectful to you or anyone else in this community. Go ahead and question. What solid, evidence-based arguments do you care to make? Because then we're having a discussion, not slinging mud. It was a poor choice on my part to bring that up without qualifying where I was coming from. I've been increasingly frustrated seeing comments and submissions (particularly related to news and politics) deleted, pigeonholed or marginalized by vague rules or nontransparent moderators. It feels like many Reddit participants are not interested in discussion, but rather, manipulating, distracting, or otherwise preventing discussion. I suppose the quality of the discussion is as much a result of the individual participants as it is the framework of the site that it takes place in. A news story posted to Reddit is filtered through different subreddits to reflect different community's interests and proffer their group's opinions. Obviously Hubski simply hasn't grown large or diverse enough to mirror the same effects with users as subreddits. I'm growing to like the idea of following individuals whose contributions I value; there is some inherent transparency that comes from developing a personal rapport with other users. I suppose the more time I spend here, the better feeling I will get for individual Hubskian's world views and can feel more confident in offering my opinions while not unduly offending or stepping on a person's toes. I wouldn't really consider myself as either one of your polar factions (literally Hitler or cocktail party), although I get the sardonicism in your use of the "literally Hitler" meme to represent the outsiders. I do understand your point that a "mute as global comment ignore" or whatever that side was pushing for (I think I unfortunately made a comment in tepid support of it), neuters mute too much. I like the idea that the creator of the post is the moderator of that post, and anyone can post whatever they want. Perhaps the biggest point of disagreement that I would have with you is that an apology is always necessary, or would work in every circumstance. For example, I think it was minimum_wage (please forgive me if I'm wrong!) who mentioned that even if someone apologized to him/her, it wouldn't make a difference, which is fine. If some libertarian (or any other ideological label) is distracting, attacking or trolling my posts without adding any value, I would be within my right, and perhaps expected, to mute him, regardless of an apology. I suppose my considerations of the mute feature are borne from imagining how it would look in 2016 when Hubski has grown (10x, 100x, maybe even 1000x?) and popular users are submitting pro-Hillary for president content with rampant astroturfing while muting users who are offering critical discussion. How will regular users be able to navigate that type of thing? I suppose the Hubski model makes astroturfing more difficult, and the lack of global moderation would allow the real discussion to spill elsewhere. In the end, I guess it's pie in the sky to wonder about these things; it's better to go along for the ride rather than to knock over the apple cart out of some perceived threat. List them and explain why you think they merit. It then becomes a debate rather than slander. Honestly, I'm not friends with any of the people involved, nor was I part of the discussion, so I wouldn't really hold my opinion in high regard. I came to this, and other threads, to discuss the mute feature specifically, not some past disagreement between people I don't know. I regret even mentioning that I have an opinion on that. At any rate, I appreciate the time you spent discussing this with me. As someone who is relatively new to Hubski, it feels daunting to become a member of the community; there is no tutorial for getting to know people."I question how it could be abused after watching Reddit's decline and manipulation."
"I've seen accusations of abuse, with varying degrees of merit, in my opinion."
So this is a direct illustration of the problem at hand: Reddit has become a shit community and prompts occasional diasporas to Hubski. Most of those refugees frame their Hubski experience in terms of "how is it like Reddit." The fact that there are no moderators on Hubski is visible if you're looking for it, but if you're not it's just another link aggregator with comments, except you can't downvote. I moderate /r/movies and moderated /r/politics for about 10 days (that mess where they banned Mother Jones) and I know exactly the frustration you're speaking of. However, I also know that Hubski doesn't function anything like that... and that most of the problems new users to Hubski experience are a direct consequence of coming at it with a Reddit mindset. For example, I created a firestorm by suggesting I wanted the ability to ignore new users until they were no longer new. From a Hubski standpoint, this makes perfect sense - "ignoring" is something that lots of people do, because they aren't interested in reading articles from Buzzfeed or Gawker or that spammer that always posts links to their click farm. From my perspective, I didn't want to ignore "reddit" because I'm a damn default mod with like 30 trophies and a couple hundred comments in /r/bestof that's been to the offices a couple times and has the cell phone numbers of three admins. BUT i didn't want to have to wade through eighteen duplicate posts about how much reddit sucks. "Ignore new users" solves this problem without censoring anybody - yet all the new Redditors were looking for censorship, so they shaped everything they saw in terms of censorship and jimmies were rustled. Once jimmies were rustled, all the Redditors adopted a "jimmies always rustled" war footing and here we are. Meanwhile, an attempt to understand the dynamics of the site they're adopting would have resolved the problem immediately... and the feature I asked for, if implemented, would have prevented any conflict at all. I personally talk about Hubski and growth all the time. This is why I think the mute function is vital, as is ignore. Let's say I'm a pro-Hillary astroturfer. I can mute everyone that is anti-Hillary. But anybody paying any attention will quickly notice that the commentary is one-sided and shallow... and that any dissent tends to be short-lived and highly voted. At that point the onus falls on the reader to judge the quality of the content - and there's nothing stopping him from posting something lambasting Hillary and getting an entirely different set of comments. Mute and Ignore allow disparate factions to exist on the same website without the raiding exemplified by SRS and 4chan. "Ignore users newer than 24 hours" would even shove new shill accounts to the bottom of the comments without the reader having to do a thing... and if implemented correctly, would re-configure things the next time the reader viewed the page (assuming it had been 24 hours). It looks like censorship, when in fact it's simply vote ranking. Mute users newer than 24 hours (which I did not, have not, and probably will not ask for, ever) would solve the raid problem entirely. Right there, there are two aspects of Hubski's architecture that solve dire problems with Reddit's structure without any human moderation whatsoever. I suggest you re-read my post. nowhere did I say that an apology is always necessary, and nowhere did I say that an apology would work in every circumstance. What I said was that apologies increase human contact and on a site that values community over conflict, could be a feature that benefits everyone. I did not intend it as a panacea nor do I think it will solve every problem. Honestly, I posted it as a talking point amongst a crowd of butt-hurt Redditors that steadfastly refuses to understand the purpose of "mute" because they want to gripe about their freedoms being trampled wherever they go. The whole discussion quickly became tiresome, but not as quickly as the posts where they weren't muted. Which, to me, is the entire point of the function. Perhaps the biggest point of disagreement that I would have with you is that an apology is always necessary, or would work in every circumstance.
As someone who is relatively new to Hubski, it feels daunting to become a member of the community; there is no tutorial for getting to know people.
Thanks. That makes a lot of sense. I remember that little ignore shitstorm; I thought you had a good point from the start and I figured as a new user myself, I probably didn't have the perspective to contribute an opinion worth anyone's time. Perhaps I should have maintained that on this issue as well, but I guess ultimately, talking about things is the way to get to know people. It's easy to get trapped on one side or the other of a polarized debate, like I did, spending energy framing the other's argument as opposition to my own. I see the nuance of your point. Apology (and openness, I think) isn't really a clear-cut solution, but a good general approach. I appreciate the welcome; in my time spent lurking, you came across as prickly, insightful, and yet now, friendly.
Blocking anyone's content so you can't see it is fine. Blocking anyone's content so others can't see it is not. With your ideal muting function, you've got to rationalize that you're taking discussional surrogacy over people who view your posts. You're making a decision for them. Why would you do that? I've thought up some, but I'm not going to be a jackass and assume what your motivations are. I'd like to know though. You keep saying "my content" in regards to your posts. Your posts are yours. Categorically, objectively, blah blah. They're yours. But the discussions people can have on your posts are entirely comprised, owned, and made by contributors. This comment is "my content". Not yours. You don't own this comment because it's your thread. You don't own this comment because your comment's the parent comment. This is mine; the post and your comments are yours. Being a post originator shouldn't let you silence contributors from other contributors. By doing so, you're saying their content is yours. "I drink your milkshake! I drink it up!" So two things really. Why do you think you can make content-viewing decisions for people who view your posts? And do you think you own the comments from contributors when they write on your posts? There's got to be a better word than "own" by the way. I'm saying own because it seems a best fit, but if you'd like to use a different word, that's fine.
This would be "ignore." This would be literally no site functionality on Hubski. Mute doesn't censor. Mute prevents you from saying anything in the first place. Say whatever you want on the street; I'm not required to suffer it in my own house. Because it's divisive, off-topic, inflammatory, antagonistic, obscene, or otherwise offensive. Next? Sure. But the blanket of words you choose to spread out are on my lawn. I can't do shit about your words. But I can sure as hell keep you off my lawn. Blogger, Myspace, Facebook, Tumblr, Wordpress and pretty much everything but 4chan, Reddit, Digg and Slashdot work like this. And you are posting it with my tacit approval because it's my post. If it were on some other post owned by some other person, I'd have no ability to do anything about it. It's their lawn, not mine. And that's the metaphor to wrap your head around: Hubski exists to follow users, not subjects. In other words, you aren't going to a party at 2nd and Blanchard, you're going to a party at Run's House. If you say something offensive to Run, he's well within his rights to show you the door - your offensive comment hangs in the air; everyone heard it. Run, meanwhile, doesn't have to suffer you at his parties anymore. You can look in through the windows, but you can't mix it up. It's been that way as long as I've been here, and I shall be here so long as it continues to be so. Then maybe you should find another site to play on. Because on here, it does. By doing so, they're making their comments with my permission. "You've had too much to drink. Go home." Because the site deliberately, tacitly gives me permission to do so. If it didn't, I wouldn't participate. I think Hubski owns everything any of us writes, but I'm not a lawyer. I know that there's built-in site functionality whose explicit purpose is to give me moderation power over who can and can't post on my content, and I find it advantageous to use it. Yeah, you didn't try very hard. Give "permit" a shot and see how much better the analogy works.Blocking anyone's content so you can't see it is fine.
Blocking anyone's content so others can't see it is not.
With your ideal muting function, you've got to rationalize that you're taking discussional surrogacy over people who view your posts. You're making a decision for them. Why would you do that?
But the discussions people can have on your posts are entirely comprised, owned, and made by contributors. This comment is "my content". Not yours.
This is mine; the post and your comments are yours.
Being a post originator shouldn't let you silence contributors from other contributors.
By doing so, you're saying their content is yours.
"I drink your milkshake! I drink it up!"
So two things really. Why do you think you can make content-viewing decisions for people who view your posts?
And do you think you own the comments from contributors when they write on your posts?
There's got to be a better word than "own" by the way.
This is the hinge of your argument: that you own the ground people comment on when they choose to write on your posts. But thank fucking Jesus there's a choice. So, at the risk of ruining your dinner party, I'm going to get the hell out myself. Because you're big on respect, I'll say you've changed my opinion. Not begrudgingly, but in the way you seem to usually do. Where you leave whoever you're talking to feeling like they've talked to a real asshole, but they can't say anything about it because you get your point across. Keep your lawn shit free...the blanket of words you choose to spread out are on my lawn.
Yes. Precisely. As is entirely your right. I certainly find that solution preferable to the drive to change the rules. That uncomfortable feeling you're experiencing is called cognitive dissonance. It's caused by holding conflicting ideas concurrently as they fight for primacy in your cortex. One idea will win out eventually; for most people, the old idea is at the top of the hill and generally wins out. Either way, it's an experience that does cause an experience of physical pain in some people. Here's a great reference. For what it's worth, I'd like to point out that you called me an asshole and you're still unmuted. Which I might point out (so long as I'm giving you a headache anyway) could possibly indicate that the reasons and motivations for muting aren't as simple or as arbitrary as you think.This is the hinge of your argument: that you own the ground people comment on when they choose to write on your posts.
But thank fucking Jesus there's a choice. So, at the risk of ruining your dinner party, I'm going to get the hell out myself.
ecause you're big on respect, I'll say you've changed my opinion. Not begrudgingly, but in the way you seem to usually do. Where you leave whoever you're talking to feeling like they've talked to a real asshole, but they can't say anything about it because you get your point across.
Understanding the analogy doesn't change that muting someone is exclusionary - whether good or bad. As such, it makes new users uncomfortable rustling established users' jimmies. That might be how the site's constructed, how it's going to be, and how you like it, but it makes the community harder to approach. It's not cognitive dissonance. My opinions weren't idealized so there wasn't a hill to be king of. You just have an abrasive way of talking about things that's not the most helpful. This time it was though. It was a good talk, klein. Maybe we'll have more.
It just turns into opinion about how the site should work, then. Maybe I would like to see that person's input and snark. It's not my content they're posting on, but it's still my user experience being (potentially) diminished by letting someone else decide. In most cases, if you have someone muted, I probably would too. I personally would liberally apply the mute button on anyone who thought behind-the-back snarking is appropriate.
And there will be a hierarchy of opinions about how it should work. Those that favor functionality for individuals will be overruled by those who favor functionality for the community. Period. This is why content providers have more power over what you see than content consumers. It has to be that way or else your content providers leave. For example, I know at least three people who are "taking a break" from Hubski because the sheer number of assholes with opinions is overwhelming right now.
For the record, that is my preferred solution to the problem.
Hey syzo, that's actually an idea that's been popping up a few times since all of this started. I suggested the same thing yesterday or two days ago, and wasoxygen had a great and more expansive post on a similar idea. I think you'll find that post interesting.
Yep! I've read that post. I had the general idea before s/he posted it, but I think that post solidified my thoughts. I think nuking the reply tree of a muted user works better, though, rather than showing the link and reply tree. My suggestion would result in something much more similar to how it works right now, from the muter's perspective.
I saw that you shared it after my reply, should have checked that before! Hm. That's an interesting take on it. I think if the default is to nuke the chain, there should be an option to show it but still not have the muted users comments at all.
I would never use it in this functionality because, no matter how I feel about someone, I want to be able to view their input if there is one (across the site, at least).[1] I advocate for a collapse-the-comments and turn-off-notifications approach as opposed to total invisibility. That way if you want to see it it's there, but you have to go digging for it and you realize what you're getting into. If it's a user you just absolutely can't stand/can't interact with, you don't expand the comments and go looking for a fight. There have been users I've really disliked 95% of the time here, but 1-2% of the time, I have agreed with their comments and thought they were right. I don't want to lose the ability to occasionally agree even if I mostly detest a person. [1] Yes, this may seem ironic as I've used "mute" and it removes a user from my posts - but then it's clear cut; there's nothing there not to see. In addition, it doesn't apply site-wide, but only to my posts, which I think makes a difference as with mute as it currently is I can still see interactions occurring outside of my posts.
I'm aware that I'm perhaps atypically vehement on this point of view - I refuse to delete old phone numbers, and have had a tough time removing frenemies/old flames/former friends on Facebook and other social media simply because, although I may not have a connection to these people now, I'd prefer to know what they are up to if I so choose. Except in extreme cases (a particularly poisonous former friend, a particularly painful and frequently-thought-of old lover) when I can't help myself or it's better to excise the drama, I opt for the ability to have knowledge over completely cutting someone out. Part of this is because I want to prove to myself that I am able to not interact with them (once a relationship is ended, for instance). And a large part of it is also a raving curiosity I've always possessed. I very well may be in the minority here and if it comes to that I will accept it, but for me the mute function would lose its functionality, unless in an extreme, inescapable case of personal harassment.
Yeah, I can see where you're coming from, because I probably wouldn't use "mute as comment ignore" all too much either unless it was blatant spamming. I personally wouldn't use the mute function as it currently is either because I don't want to block someone from sharing their views with other people, even if it's views I disagree with on posts that I make. Social media is hard, let's go shopping.
The only kink in this solution that I can see is viewing unmuted replies to the muted user. If the parent comment is a muted user, will all the following comments not be shown as well? Or would every comment appear except the muted user's? If the current system (as I understand it) is kept, then the conversation wouldn't take place at all. But if your solution is used, how can you follow a half-sensored discussion without lifting the mute?
You can't. He's a user with at least 1K users. If he censors you, you're done for. Short of "apologizing" for having a different view than his, there's nobody anywhere on this site who would see what you said. His goal, apparently (stated in another thread) is to make anybody less than half his account's age, feel very fucking unwelcome here. Killing the idea the site was built on (a place for thoughtful discussion). Edit: Cleaned up this comment some. Turning this into a wall of text. Funny thing is, if he muted me, there would be no way in fuck I'd be able to "apologize", considering I think we don't have any mutual followers / friends. A true power user if I ever saw one. You know what? CashewGuy just said it best in a lower part of the thread (and I'm going to badge it when I can just on this) - If the current system (as I understand it) is kept, then the conversation wouldn't take place at all. But if your solution is used, how can you follow a half-sensored discussion without lifting the mute?
Let's turn that "Have you tried apologizing?" sentence into a hyperlink. And when the user clicks on it, they see a list of 'follows' that the muter and mutee have in common - 'mutual friends' if you will that could intercede on your behalf.
I don't care if people mute me, that's fine. I care that people can remove my ability to talk to others. That, to me, is a problem. No one should have the ability to stop me from talking to someone else. Sure, I could go start another post. But that's a band-aid, not a solution. I'm much more in favor of the several proposals of "mute as comment ignore" where the muter simply doesn't see the comment anymore, but doesn't remove that person's ability to communicate and have discourse.
There's a remarkable amount of butt-hurt about a feature that nobody has attempted to understand, including you. Here - let me show you the posts that my "mute" setting are even effective on: BAM. That's it. My "mute" settings ARE ONLY EFFECTIVE ON MY POSTS. What is so hard about this?
Are you referring to this thread or the other similar posts made around that time? If you are, you'll see that kleinbl00 has no goal to "make anybody with less than half his accounts age, feel very fucking unwelcome here." I know this thread has come up in discussion recently and I haven't really seen anything else from KB about muting new users, especially not in this recent turn of events. If that is the thread you're referring to, I do think it's important to accurately represent what you reference. If there is a comment somewhere that I've missed that your summation does accurately reference, I wouldn't mind seeing it - especially as KB does not have 1000 followers. (I mean, close, but your representation of "at least 1k" makes it seem like you believe he has perhaps substantially more than 1k, which is definitely wrong.) I also think it's important to remember when discussing "mute" that "mute" only works on content posts. KB's share/content ratio is about 50%. He is by no means a "power submitter." He may have a ton of followers, who see both what he posts, and (perhaps more importantly) what he shares - and what he shares his mutes don't apply to. It's not 100% of the things you see in your feed from KB that you can't reply to. I just feel like that's important to remember because we are talking about the impact of having hundreds of followers as if all the followers only see your content posts and as if that is the only thing followers follow a user for, when really one can choose to follow a user because they like what is shared by that user - and kb's mutes have no impact on that portion of the feed that he generates. To be completely clear, I just did the math, and for the number of days kleinbl00 has been here he posts an average of a little more than two posts a day This whole brigade is getting out of hand because users feel they are censored because they can't comment on what comes out to two posts on this entire website a day (on average). If you consider the sheer number of posts put to Hubski on a given day, don't these proclamations of "if he mutes you you're fucked" and "if he censors you, you're done for" seem a little out of hand now that we've got some math behind them? For sources: kb has been here 1,051 days. Add up the number of his personal tags (since now they have been applied to every post, ever). I got 2,191, aka 2,191 posts. Number of posts/days. Basic. (I wouldn't have to do this part if I just knew how many posts were submitted to Hubski a day but I don't so we're gonna extrapolate) To get even more math-wizardy up in here, let's consider the Hubski community page which features, among other things, a list of the most active posters. kleinbl00 is listed as #18 currently. That means that there are 17 users on Hubski that post more frequently than kb, which is to say that they post more frequently than 2.08x/day. Now I'm going to do you two favors here that should help show you exactly why kleinbl00 can mute as many people as he wants and it's not total Hubski annihilation or even close. 1) We're going to forget every user that posts less than kleinbl00. Yup, that's right, I realize that there's about another 32 names on that list, but fuck 'em. So we're just going to talk about the 18 most popular posters on this site here. 2) We're going to assume that everyone who posts more than kleinbl00 barely posts any more than him. I'm going to be very generous here and we'll say that every user above kb on that list only posts 2.5 posts, on average, a day. I think it'd be more fair and accurate to split the 17 in the middle and say half do 3 and half do 2.5, but you know what? I really don't have the math or stats for that. I do know that kb's coming in at 2.08 though so really, assuming that all 17 above him only each post an average of 2.5 a day is a pretty thin margin. 17 users * 2.5 = 42.5 posts a day, just from these 17. We'll add in kleinbl00's 2 now for a total of 44.5 posts a day. Again, totally disregarding anyone outside of the top 18 posters, we can already very easily see that kb is responsible for less than 5% of content posts on any given day. So kb's mutes apply to less than 5% of all posts on any given day - using averages and extrapolating, of course. I understand some people consider this censorship - but it's certainly not the extreme "new user kill" or "ignore death" that people are making it out to be. I'd like it if we could get off of that ridiculous thought.
My idea is to not show the muted user's comments, and the entire reply tree under that comment. Yeah, I agree that it would be tough to follow a half-invisible discussion. Probably as annoying as listening to a stranger talk loudly on their phone. To the muter, it's the same result as muting works now. As far as you know, nothing happened.
Have a showdead option in the users profile. Off -> don't display any of the tree. On -> display the full tree, but with any comments by the muted user in a font color with less contrast
A heads up that mk is internet free for a while in Northern Michigan.
Works for me. Naming things is a hard problem, and one I personally don't even try to figure out.
As CashewGuy and YetAnotherAccount point out, occasionally the person DOING the muting is the person who is being childish. Indeed, KB, I'm sure you've seen your share of these people. Do we have a solution for this situation? because I like the A side of this record, but I don't think that either "making a new post on the same content right next to one another (and splitting the conversation and/or getting no response to one or the other)", or "just accept you can't comment on this post/issue" are workable solutions
Sometimes the person doing the muting is being childish, sometimes the person being muted is being childish, and sometimes both are. But it's all subjective. What should be done if half the people think that the person doing the muting is obviously wrong and should apologize, and half the people think that the person being muted is obviously wrong and should apologize? There is no good answer to that, under the current mute system. Splitting the discussion in half doesn't scale, among worse problems. Not commenting... Well, that basically ends up with "the poweruser is king" (as they tend to be the people posting) - and if you need evidence that that has problems, look at StackOverflow. Effectively, mute ends up making the site turn into a bunch of echo chambers that don't ever communicate with each other. And as such, I do not believe that the censorship portion of muting should exist. Mute should be the comment equivalent of ignore, and no more. You don't see the comments of a user you ignore, but other people do.
Right - but what you gonna do about that? I mean, if Asshat posts something, my reasons for commenting it are either: A) to wind up asshat B) to correct someone responding to asshat whose opinion I actually care about. If (A), stop that. be a part of the solution, not a part of the problem. If (B), PM them to shout you out and lo and behold, you can talk again. Thereby giving Asshat the option to mute your friend.
You don't understand apologies. The purpose of an apology is to smooth things over. It is not a prize to be won. "I said nothing that required an apology" is untrue on its face - someone was upset or annoyed by your statements enough to mute you. You were put out by this. If you wish to remedy this situation, you have to apologize. You have to reach out. The apology is therefore required. Now - you may not feel that the apology is JUSTIFIED. However, the upper hand in this discussion belongs to the other person. If you wish to communicate unrestricted on their posts, the onus for correcting the imbalance is on you. The choice is simple: Are you willing to abase yourself enough to bridge the gap of discussion? Then do so. Would you rather sit in your castle of high dudgeon maintaining that you have no need to apologize? Then accept that you've been muted. It's that easy.
I'm sure neither of us are inclined to do so. I don't follow you and you don't follow me. That's not my point. I don't care if people mute me, that's fine. I care that people can remove my ability to talk to others. That, to me, is a problem. No one should have the ability to stop me from talking to someone else. Sure, I could go start another post. But that's a band-aid, not a solution. I'm much more in favor of the several proposals of "mute as comment ignore" where the muter simply doesn't see the comment anymore, but doesn't remove that person's ability to communicate and have discourse. As for your point on apologies, there's a reason you're not supposed to apologize in a vehicle accident. An apology is an admission of guilt. People shouldn't have to feel guilty about holding diverse opinions here. Hubski is a community centered around "thoughtful discussion," and jumping up and down on someone's ability to speak (once again, to others) defeats that. You used the phrase "upper hand," that itself incites conflict rather than discourse (and I'd argue, goes against your "reach out" suggestion). I don't have the inclination to talk to people who aren't willing to tolerate opinions they don't share, I come here for discussion and thoughtful debate on topics. Being silenced for having a differing opinion destroys what Hubski is.
It isn't, actually. Not ever. Not in any court in the land, not in any form of conversation, not in any definition anywhere. In legal engagements they can complicate settlements if you're stupid: That's not an apology, that's an admission of lawbreaking. The fact that they tell you not to apologize for anything is that lawyers suspect you're too flustered to have a clue what you're doing. Yet you have this whole "guilt" thing about apologies. It's weird, frankly. And you only touch on it long enough to get back to your point, which isn't the discussion we're having, which is that you don't understand apologies. You should try to understand apologies. Not for here, but for your life in general. The idea that you should only ever apologize if you're guilty of wrongdoing probably fucks you a lot more than you even know.An apology is an admission of guilt.
f you jump out of your car and blurt out, "I'm so sorry I ran that red light! Is everyone okay?" you may back yourself into a corner in terms of legal liability for what happened.
I try to have a conversation, and am told I don't understand the conversation. This is why I stopped trying to have a conversation with you. For irony, I'll go ahead and mute you. I know it won't prove my point to you, but clearly you're incapable of understanding it anyway.
Exactly. Just because person A muted person B doesn't automatically mean that person B did something wrong to person A.
I wonder if part of this whole internet hostility thing is because there's no native "Hi, I'm _________" part of interactions where we can make snap judgments on people's appearances, voices, etc. in addition to what they say. Or let's take an example from the Western model of food production. Westerners (yeah, I mostly mean white people . . . so?) generally do not give a fuck about animals without faces. On styrofoam and shrink-wrapped? "Mmm, chicken!" With feathers, clucking and shitting? "Oh my god, I feel so close to my roots. Animals are adorable!" No face? Whatever. Face? "Let's be friends!" When really everything is food AND friends (potentially).
You mean that we should have an image/photo with our username? Cause that's never going to fly :-) Though it would be hilarious if mk came back and we had coded it up and implemented it. He would literally turn off Hubski. But, we can all put images in our profiles, it's just that nobody does. Well, almost nobody: 
I was wrong about mute. I just used it on someone who's awful at posting and actively degraded my Hubski experience. This is a great idea, though the language probably needs something more. It seems like most people mute users who are oblivious and bullheaded.
And if/when you get muted for a difference in beliefs? Should one apologize for having a different opinion than another?
If you and a power user have some deep divide in beliefs (like pro-Obama and anti-Obama) and they have you muted, presumably you can just repost whatever news story you wanted to comment on, or make your comment on someone else's post. Right? If you want pro-life commentary, follow pro-life submitters, who mute people who are pro-choice, and vice-versa. Am I missing something about how Hubski works?
That doesn't help in the slightest for the case of "user responds to you then mutes you", among others. Also, reposting when you're muted a) doesn't scale and b) ends up being equivalent (if a lot clunkier than) making mute just the comment equivalent of ignore.
Can they remove your first comment? Can't you just edit it and add "Thanks for muting me so I can't respond"? To anyone reading the thread, seeing the mute feature used in an aggressive way is a huge red flag. Being able to see when people are muted seems important, to understand what is going on in a thread. Certainly, there are assholes who deserve to be muted. We've all seen them. And certainly, there are assholes who will mute decent people who only want discussion. We just need a system that lets users differentiate between the two. I agree, simple reposting doesn't seem like the best or most elegant solution. It obviously favors power users over sock puppets, but as long as there is a easy way to find discussion forks, I don't see it as being inherently worse. Lets say in a hypothetical situation, some power user submits a news article about Generic Wasteful Government Project X and I really want to make an well written, researched and informed comment about it but can't because I was muted many months ago for an unrelated comment and they never responded to any of my "apologies" (unlikely, but could happen to someone). I would have to make my own post, with my comment on it. If it was a great comment, discussion could occur there, completely outside the ability of the original user to stifle or censor. The way I see it, there are two issues that should be addressed. One, it should be as visible as possible to observers when mute is being abused. That user should have far fewer followers if abusive muting was apparent. And two, as long as outside observers can at least find discussions started by muted people, those doing the muting can't stop what is being discussed. There is no censorship, just a new discussion that people either feel worthy of sharing, or not. I suppose the issue might come up if a muted user just wants to make a short or snide comment about a post, but perhaps in those instances, when you're not bringing a comment worthy of discussion, it's probably best left unsaid. Hubski still seems pretty small, and I think it's hard to figure out what things will look like when/if the community grows much bigger. I'd hope that as the core group of power users grows, they become ideologically diverse and the site's features allow for transparency. That doesn't help in the slightest for the case of "user responds to you then mutes you", among others.
Also, reposting when you're muted a) doesn't scale and b) ends up being equivalent (if a lot clunkier than) making mute just the comment equivalent of ignore.
I don't know. If you can edit it, a) that doesn't affect any other comments / posts later (especially if they are a power user), and b) that means that mute is even less effective for its stated purpose. This is (strongly) subjective. What one person believes to be a perfectly valid reason to mute someone another will strongly believe is not a valid reason to mute them, and wants to respond to them. Reposting on mute does not scale And, even besides that issue, there isn't an easy way to find discussion forks. Especially when it's a fork off of a comment as opposed to a fork off of a post. And if one was created, then you've just reimplemented "mute as ignore for comments", only clunkier, and more prone to fragmenting the community. Can they remove your first comment? Can't you just edit it and add "Thanks for muting me so I can't respond"?
when mute is being abused.
as long as there is a easy way to find discussion forks, I don't see it as being inherently worse.
I think as long as it's clear when mute is being used, people can make up their own minds about the validity of it. I may want to follow a particular user who mutes people who are disruptive or try to derail discussions, while on the other hand, I want to be sure not to follow people who use mute in an aggressive way. You're right, the determination there is subjective, so whatever mute interface is implemented, it should be clear how it's being used. I'm not sure what exactly should change, though. As for scaling, I agree with you, something should be changed. If I want to see discussion about a particular news story, I don't want to have to search through five or more different discussions because some gun rights activist muted a gun control advocate, who wanted to respond to pro-life commenter who muted a pro-choice person, in a post by an atheist who muted a very reasonable non-denominational Christian, who were all muted from the original discussion by a feminist. It's fine if they all want to have separate discussions, but as someone who likes being exposed to diverse ideologies, I would at least like to easily find and read them all.
I'm good friends with several Serious Southern Baptists, and we have almost nothing in common aside from being major geeks. We have good discussions about pop culture and politics, and we stay respectful all the way through. Differences in beliefs shouldn't keep two people from being friends and having good discussions.
Shouldn't isn't the same thing as won't, though. Just in my brief experience on Hubski I've seen multiple cases of people being muted where I do not believe the person who was muted should be obliged to apologize.
I feel that de-anonymizing or humanizing the usernames on any forum would naturally increase the level of civility, I'm all for it! Question: on this hypothetical "You've been muted, have you tried apologizing?" page that greets a muted user, is the list of common followers displayed so that the muted user can then use ask of those common followers to relay a communication?
That would be the idea, yes. I'm rushing to get this out so I can go to dinner, but the object would be to communicate to the mutee that there are "friends in common" that could speak on your behalf. Unless, of course, you don't have any friends in common at which point you might want to ask yourself why it's so important to comment on the muter's posts.