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Why doesn't blocking work? (kbin.social)

submitted 1 year ago by danhakimi@kbin.social to c/kbinMeta@kbin.social

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I had to block a few users yesterday. Today, I noticed about ten notifications from users I've blocked—they replied to me, continued to make up lies about my heritage, and I continued to see their comments in my notifications.

It seems that the only effect of my blocking them is that I can no longer see their comments in context—although I am still notified of their harassment. This is quite the opposite effect from the one I was going for—I mean, I'm happy to spend less time engaging with them, but the block feature seems to be guaranteeing these bigots the "last word" and preventing me from even reporting them. They can then follow me anywhere on kbin and continue to harass me, the block function is only stopping me from doing anything about it.

At least one of these users is on the same instance as I am, kbin.social.

Why doesn't blocking work?

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[–] cacheson@kbin.social 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Alright, let's pretend that you've blocked me, and that this comment is telling everyone that you smell bad. It's not a direct/child response to your comment, but everyone can see it and knows I'm talking about you. If you don't respond, then by your logic I've "won", and you must in fact smell bad.

It seems more like you're taking a stand on stubborn principle than advocating for good user interface design.

[–] danhakimi@kbin.social 2 points 1 year ago

People expect to see replies in a comment chain because people expect the user to be notified. Nobody expects the user to follow down a totally different comment chain they weren't notified of to see every single insult anybody levies at them. And people recognize the extreme pettiness of baselessly insulting a user in a different comment chain where they aren't notified of the comment.

Whereas, if it's actually an informed response to misinformation, nobody sees it as petty, and it doesn't need to be in the same comment chain to have its effect, and it really doesn't need to be a back and forth.

Long comment chains really don't benefit anybody but the trolls who bait reasonable people into them, tbh.