Some forums have a star based ranking system for posters. Ebay has something similar.
We are seeing more and more people joining the forum as free versions of SU get more use. Sadly, that also means increasing numbers of people who don’t engage properly. Regulars often identify such types and maintain an actual or informal blacklist so they can avoid wasting their time, time which is given free and in a spirit of helpfulness. A ranking system might identify such people more readily. In turn, that would mean they get less forum “oxygen” and are likely to leave of their own accord. Or they might start to pull their socks up if they see themselves descending the ranking and want to stay.
One of the Sketchup Sages agrees that something like this would be useful. I wonder if it has been considered before?
For example, I can click your avatar in the above post, and see your trust level is Member, that you have earned the Respected badge and had an account here almost 5 years.
Yes, I agree that the Trust level is useful but mostly for people who have a history established. Is it any use in identifying newbies who quickly become a nuisance?
Well, they’ll be either New or Basic level.
You can see from the popup when they joined and how much read time they have accumulated.
You can also open their profile and see if they they’ve liked or been liked.
Reputation is kind of a subjective thing.
But it might be a nice shortcut if there was a mute user link on the avatar popup.
Not sure what forum software is being used here, but…
In many or most forum softwares there is an ignore list feature which each user manages to their own taste. If you don’t wish to be distracted by the posts of User X you add them to your ignore list and then never see any of their posts in your viewing of the forum. Sometimes the blocked user’s posts are just collapsed and a particular post can be opened with a click.
Given that this feature is not available on this forum, here’s another method. When a particular poster annoys you to a sufficient degree you’ll remember their name and can thus ignore threads they start, and scroll by them in other threads.
Another solution which the mods could implement is to create a section specifically for new comers to SketchUp. New users could even be limited to this section until they prove their worthiness, however the mods define that.
Another solution is that each member can take responsibility for their own emotional experience of the forum, and the Net more generally. It’s not that rational to focus on the jerks (however that is defined) because there is an unlimited supply of them extending out over the horizon. A wiser more efficient strategy is to focus our attention instead on the one brain we actually have some control over, ours. This whole paragraph is of course quite unpopular because judging others is one of the more popular games on the Internuts.
Another unpopular strategy would be to remove screen names from posts. Given the human condition, what happens is that we become emotionally attached to our anonymous screen names and then have an emotional reaction when someone is perceived to have disrespected that fantasy identity. The content of a post is what matters, who cares that Snoopydog27 wrote it?
Little of the above is likely to happen here or elsewhere because we are creatures of habit and usually prefer to plod along in the rut of the status quo. We like what we already know, the familiar, the routine.
Forums are full of human beings. Human beings are routinely annoying. That’s life. Get over it, and get back to work.
Unless you are a mod, your opinion of what engaging properly means is your opinion, and nothing more. If you aren’t a mod, and you are presuming to define engaging properly for others, you are engaging improperly.
According to me, which means nothing of course, as that’s just my opinion, and I too am not a mod.
I hope you won’t do either Ian but thanks for the heads up. I wasn’t aware of that feature but, now that I am, I shall make use of it. I think it neatly answers my post because if enough people mute someone, they should get the message and give up.
I have made use of the system successfully! I like the fact that you can choose a period. So someone who just needs a bit more experience here, or just has to grow up a bit, isn’t necessarily cast into the outer circle of hell forever.
Any idea what the difference between Ignore and Mute is?
Muted: You will not be notified when they reply to you.
Ignore: You will not see their topics, or any replies from them in topics will be invisible to you. (Which could make the topic no sense at all to you, depending)
The “Mute” feature suppresses notifications from users muted. If they reply or like your posts you will not receive a notification. You’ll still see them around the forum even in your own thread.
The “Ignore” feature is a improved muting version which suppresses all notifications and posts (but not threads).
Have been in discussion with a Sage privately about this and even he is not sure of the difference. If you have it right I guess Ignoring someone would make Muting them pointless, right?
