The whole point of this free network (well, part of it) is that we can tailor it to our needs and desires. If we should mentally filter out what we don't want to see, then why have a 'stream' with customizable 'aspects' at all? Why not just have a firehose?

Because firehoses rarely fit into fibre cables? No, joke aside, I see your point, but I hope you also see mine. It's not a "grown-up" attitude demanding from someone else (a technician, e.g.) to do things that are his own duties. And to think for yourself, and to decide by yourself is a human's foremost duty.

Solving the problem of online bullying and harassment is absolutely a technical problem for social networks to solve, and given the prevalence of the problem, I'm a bit surprised this is controversial. Relentless harassment has forced users off of Twitter. Cyberbullying has led to suicides. Software can try to be neutral, but in the end, the choice made either empowers the harasser or the harassed.

The block feature itself is a tool to empower users to curate what they want to see. Expanding an option to make it global — if comment.author.blocked next —makes the tool more useful and empowers the harassed person who set the block. Rendering the comment unconditionally empowers the harasser.

great feature

Assuming that a user is on the ignore list and his/her comments are not visible anymore in the comment section of a post: If other comments or even a sequence of comments refer to the (invisible) comment(s) of the blocked user, will the discussion as a whole still be readable/meaningful when parts of the discussion are missing? (In case of a troll or bully, it is very unlikely though, that the discussion is of any value anyhow, but invisible comments might affect the quality of "normal" discussions.)

Hmm. Isn't blocking objectionable users the cause of facebook's echo chamber that i'm trying to escape from? Greying out maybe (serves as a flag). I do agree that trolls, who might be paid or state sponsored, ruin it for everyone and would agree to a banish if enough agree to the troll designation. How about shunting folks who earn troll points to a 'school' section so mods/users can help them understand their sin before they get banned?

But going back to the original question - why not just go to facebook where you get exactly what you want?

I'm concerned that in your desire to eliminate racists, you want to outlaw the person you consider a bigot to challenge your beliefs. Maybe 'racist' is a mislabel or inappropriate designation but YOU are too narrow minded to see that. Even if you conflate racism with Islamophobia (not da same ting), that person should be allowed to challenge your beliefs - there ARE some grounds for reasonable concern. Only if the convo becomes 'stuck' or insulting should some system intervene.

You have not understood anything, the matter it is not Diaspora* exercises censorship as facebook style, the deal it is the absolute sovereignty of each user on his timeline.

Postscript, facebook users complain that they see comments from users who have blocked.

Sorry about my English.

@mstrube yeah, it might be best if ignored comments are greyed out. It might get confusing if people are responding to something that you yourself cannot see.

@bobi, this will not create an echo chamber for you if you decide not to ignore comments from certain users.

How about shunting folks who earn troll points to a 'school' section so mods/users can help them understand their sin before they get banned?

Firstly, because that lays undo burden upon the podmin, or some other person to be somehow delegated to that task, to repeatedly expend personal energy every single time a troll comes to town. In other words, that is a governmental process, and it sort of fucks with the quasi-horizontal nature of Diaspora*.

Second, No one is even talking about banning anyone from the network. We are talking about users having the ability to remove certain people from their own view (and no one else's), at the user's discretion.

My refusal to read a piece of text is not censorship. If I refuse to let you read a piece of text, that is censorship.