The purpose of an ignored users feature on forums should be so we can avoid users that are more just annoying than rule-breaking, and to self-moderate our forum experience.
Unfortunately the feature as implemented on these forums really doesn't function in a useful way for multiple reasons:
The feature seems to apply retroactively; instead of preventing a blocked user's posts from loading, they are loaded as normal then hidden later. This means when viewing a page with blocked posts not only are you fully aware they're there (as you see them before they disappear) it makes the page load slower and be less responsive, links to specific comments no longer work, and page numbering becomes incorrect. It's just broken.
Second is that blocking a user doesn't prevent them seeing your posts; it means they can reply to you and say whatever they like. In many ways this is worse than seeing their posts in the first place because it allows misinformation to be spread unchallenged, you can be insulted without anything being done about it, and other users don't know why you aren't defending your own posts. Since informing others you've done it is apparently against forum rules, if you actually try to use this feature you can end up with a warning, so again, might as well not be using the feature at all.
Third is that ignoring a user does not prevent you from receiving notifications whenever they post to a thread you're watching, which is just such a basic failure of the feature, as you're not ignoring them at all.
Basically the feature as it stands has so many fundamental problems, it would be better if it were disabled entirely as it doesn't really serve a useful purpose as-is. The following needs to be done to make this feature much more functional:
Posts by hidden users should actually be excluded properly by a database query, not hidden retroactively in such a weird way. It's not even hard to do, and it actually must have been more work to implement in its current form.
Ignoring/blocking a user should prevent them seeing your posts; I'm not blocking someone because I want them to be be able to freely post replies to me unchallenged.
Users you are ignoring or are being ignored by should not trigger notifications for you.
This is dead easy to do in a database query, for example to get posts for a page of a topic:
SELECT `p`.*, `u`.* FROM `Posts` `p` JOIN `User` `u` ON `u`.`id` = `p`.`user` LEFT JOIN `IgnoredUsers` `i` ON (`i`.`user` = ?0 AND `i`.`ignore` = `p`.`user`) OR (`i`.`user` = `p`.`user` AND `i`.`user` = ?0) WHERE `p`.`topic` = ?1 AND `i`.`ignore` IS NULL ORDER BY `date` ASC LIMIT ?2, ?3
Obviously guessing at table/column names here, the positioning placeholders are for current user ID (?0), topic ID (?1), and the starting post number and posts per page limit (?2 and ?3). This can be used to grab all the posts for a given page (range of posts) and in any good relational database should add negligible overhead if indexes are setup properly.
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I have unsubscribed from all topics and will not reply to messages. My homebrew is now 100% unsupported.
Definitely agreed on all of this. Since I have been using the feature more recently, as I have been instructed to do, the weaknesses of the feature only have become more irksome.
Yeah, the ignore function is hot garbage, always has been. I complained about it until I was blue in the face, but was told it works perfectly and to stop.
The purpose of an ignored users feature on forums should be so we can avoid users that are more just annoying than rule-breaking, and to self-moderate our forum experience.
Unfortunately the feature as implemented on these forums really doesn't function in a useful way for multiple reasons:
Basically the feature as it stands has so many fundamental problems, it would be better if it were disabled entirely as it doesn't really serve a useful purpose as-is. The following needs to be done to make this feature much more functional:
This is dead easy to do in a database query, for example to get posts for a page of a topic:
Obviously guessing at table/column names here, the positioning placeholders are for current user ID (?0), topic ID (?1), and the starting post number and posts per page limit (?2 and ?3). This can be used to grab all the posts for a given page (range of posts) and in any good relational database should add negligible overhead if indexes are setup properly.
Former D&D Beyond Customer of six years: With the axing of piecemeal purchasing, lack of meaningful development, and toxic moderation the site isn't worth paying for anymore. I remain a free user only until my groups are done migrating from DDB, and if necessary D&D, after which I'm done. There are better systems owned by better companies out there.
I have unsubscribed from all topics and will not reply to messages. My homebrew is now 100% unsupported.
Definitely agreed on all of this. Since I have been using the feature more recently, as I have been instructed to do, the weaknesses of the feature only have become more irksome.
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Yeah, the ignore function is hot garbage, always has been. I complained about it until I was blue in the face, but was told it works perfectly and to stop.
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