Ignoring/ Blocking/ Filtering other users

Sorry you're having a bad time @strypey. That feature is not in our sights.. Is there a way you can have an in person conversation or something?

Thanks for the moral support @robertguthrie :) I'll just have to grin and bear it for now. But if any other Loomio Community members would be willing to program such a feature, and push a patch back to the Loomio crew, I would really appreciate it.

Peer-blocking can be a practically necessary option for some diverse groups of actors; however, it always impairs a community, and should in my experience be a last resort. (I.e., I would personally make peer-blocking options a relatively low priority for the development of any discussion group or organization.)

If someone seems genuinely abusive, privately or publicly, it seems appropriate in most groups to report that to one or more admins. Admins of any group should care about healthy environments.

I would see this as a cultural issue, rather than a technical one (hiding posts conditionally per user seems like a really hairy path to head down to me.. and what happens when s/he wants to make nice / says something really important that you miss?); is there a way to notify the coordinator about this behaviour perhaps?

hiding posts conditionally per user seems like a really hairy path to head down to me.. and what happens when s/he wants to make nice / says something really important that you miss?

I'm privileged and pretty thick skinned, but I'm imagining a scenario where someone goes totally troppo and starts mercilessly trolling another a more vulnerable user eg with mysogynist or racist comments, and the coordinators are AWOL/ believe trolling is "free speech"/ are the troll. Are you saying that user should have no choice but to put up with those comments in case said troll says something important or nice? I don't think this is good enough.

is there a way to notify the coordinator about this behaviour perhaps?

Tried that. No result. The problem has been solved for me now, as the coordinator has ganged up with the bully and removed me from the group.

We have spam blasters in place to remove someone who is violating whatever rules the community sets up, and (as you know!) coordinators are able to remove people from the group if they're deemed to be a menace.

I could imagine a trigger which hides posts the community deems inappropriate (a 'flag for coordinator' button which notifies the group coordinator of the post, who can delete it / discipline the poster as need be, plus if a post receives some configurable number of flags, it's deleted and replaced with a placeholder automatically), but managing different streams of posts for different users is just not a great place to be in.

All in all, this is one of those things that the tech isn't too great at solving perfectly, and so as much as possible we want to educate coordinators and users about how to best use the tool effectively.

With respect @jameskiesel I think you're overthinking this. On an email list, I can easily ignore a user whose comments I find offensive (for any reason) just by filtering anything from their address straight to trash. This doesn't censor that user, or stop anyone else from reading what they've written, it just means I don't have to. All I'm proposing is an 'ignore' option like this, which collapses all comments from another user by default, so that the user feeling offended or bullied can choose whether or not to expand and read it. As I say, I'm pretty thick skinned, but there were times I experienced actual physical symptoms of anxiety when I logged in, in case there was another aggressive comment from that user. Nobody should be subject to this kind of stress while using Loomio.

TL;DR suggestion: I think that group coordinators would ideally be able to enable or to disable peers blocking peers. I also think that group coordinators would ideally have an option to make blocks visible to other users via 'personal block lists' attached (rather inconspicuously) to each person's profile page.

"...there were times I experienced actual physical symptoms of anxiety when I logged in,..."

I think this is a significant risk for discussion groups/media commons in general. Not for all discussion groups/media commons, nor even for all types of them; but it's definitely a hazard for many groups with open admissions policies. I've seen many dozens of cases in my experience of moderating controversial groups.

I think it's perfectly feasible to put the onus on group coordinators/mods, or to allow every user to block any other user they want to block. However, I've repeatedly seen that blocking is a behavior with a cost. Some people (in open, diverse groups) are quick to block others based on single incidents, misunderstandings, or perceived slights which would seem minor to most of us. Others may be unaware of these blocks for months, creating some weirdly disjointed conversations. So, I think there's a significant ongoing risk in allowing users to block others.

Much or most of that risk probably results from various parties being unaware of a current block. I'm kind of radical here, but I think the overall healthiest environment (in which blocking is enabled) would probably be one where all participants can see who has blocked whom. I don't mean that folks should go into group interactions with their personal block lists hanging around their necks, but... well okay maybe that's what I do mean, in the sense of a user's profile being a clickable 'note' hanging around their neck. That info option would reduce the risk of blocking issues being 'swept under the rug' out of sheer ignorance on others' parts.

Good thoughts @gregorycassel . What I'm proposing isn't really a block though (akin to 'filter to trash', what we used to call a "kill-file"), but an 'ignore' option where I can make another user's comments opt-in (for me). I definitely think coordinators should be made aware if a user 'ignores' another user, so they have an opportunity to facilitate a mending of those users' relationships. But the main purpose of the feature would be to protect vulnerable users in a situation where facilitation is unskilled or lacking for whatever reason.