ADMIN: Killfiles?

Really, I mean it. It might do us all some good.

Then again, it's your choice whether to use them or not. And I can see why some people might not ever want to see certain people's postings (intolerable political ideaologies, for example). It can be done on the client side easily enough, so I don't see why we shouldn't do it server side.

Can we actually debate the killfile idea now please?

The question is - does my personal distaste for them stay personal, or would my (or anyone's) enjoyment of ILX be diminished if they knew other people weren't participating/couldn't be heard fully?

i personally dont think its a good idea (plus server utilization issues)

(although part of me is amused at the thought of someone ranting on, but with no audience whatsoever!)

But it also destroys the spontaneity of this medium, and breeds distrust and paranoia into this community, which by definition is very large, free, and open to any and all who would wish to post here. Just think of all the new posters you guys get every week - I can't think of too many other e-communities which have sucha thriving/welcoming vibe to them...but administering killfiles would hamper the open-society feel of it all. It would be akin to cyber McCarthyism, "let's get our contingent to vouch for killfileing so-and-so!" could be used as a secret weapon to drive people apart and blacklist them, no? and for those who use it, they'd be lost on the threads where the blocked posters are communicatign with those who don't have a problem with them.

So no, I think it'd change thevery nature and structure of your electronic family. If you have a major problem with someone's posts or a certain thread, just shout for the moderator who might be able to do something (like take down the offensive thread).

Yes, I'd vote against that. I can easily choose not to read the posts of any particular person if I were ever so inclined. I'd be annoyed if I had set that for X and then read this thread where it all kicked off from something X said. I might not even grasp for a while that a post was missing, it would just stop making sense.
Then again, Nicole wasn't trying to make use of such a feature compulsory, so what do I care?

-- Martin Skidmore (martin.skidmores@btinternet.com), Today 2:11 PM. (Martin Skidmore)

---------------------------------

all graham's improvements to date have allowed us to personalize the way threads are presented -- this will change how they read from person to person in a substantial way. if a thread isn't the same from person to person, that's an important change.
-- Alan (AlanTrewartha@yahoo.co.uk), Today 2:14 PM. (Alan)

Every day on ILX we forge art. Boundlessly collaborative and imaginative, we maintain our collective consciousness post by post, thread by thread.

Ladies and gentlemen, not only do I believe that we should not implement this feature (which would eventually be our downfall), but I believe that it is a metaphysical impossibility to do so.

(Andrew, I set up an admin type page to show the current processes, and as far as I can tell, it isn't a problem with processing power so much as concurrency issues with the Lastread table. I'll rewrite the whole thing once my computer comes back from being repaired, whenevr that might be)

I'm serious: that is the road to hell, as chris rea has said.

to that end, people might not want to killfile just because other posters are crazy or abusive or because they have bad ideas, but maybe just because they're boring, or because their posts, whatever their merits, happen to not be of interest to the person doing the killfiling.

killfiles could also be used in the opposite direction, to highlight in some way posts of interest. it's not all negative.

both of these sorts of goals are not necessarily the free-exchange-of-ideas killers people seem to be making them out to be, but rather more efficient ways of doing what I suspect many people already do, which is read selectively.

Josh has the most cogent points in this thread thus far.

All philosophical issues aside, how would one guarantee the killfilees could remained killfiled? login name? e-mail address? IP address? If anyone was causing so much trouble as to be killfiled by certain people, they'd probably go to more trouble to easily circumvent what little form of profiling and identity ILXOR can track, anyway.

Killfiling posts from particular IP addresses would work to a small degree. But this would possibly be a load on the moderators, as they're the only ones who would have access to that information.

of course, the respectable thing to do if you are using a killfile is to not talk about it so that people don't get all a paranoid. which is just what we are supposed to be doing now when we do not talk about people whose posts we are not interested in for whatever reason. er, not talk about the not being interested, I mean.

people who know that they aggravate lots of people might have a hard time not wondering if they are being killfiled, but perhaps this just means that they should work on being less aggravating.

One alternative compromise would be just to have a new option for how to display each post -- the default is the traditional "signature style" with name etc after the post, and a new more "Bulletin Board style" with the name etc before the post, maybe with the poster name in bold.

Further to this suggestion -- although "registered" ppl are already indicated by the shortname in brackets (in some views) perhaps this status could be more heavily signed.

Would that suit the original purpose of this thread? It would mean that the content of the thread remains the same, but perhaps making it easier to skim over/concentrate on posts by particular people.

and those thoughts are sort of jimjonescultlike, are they not?

jim, thats what i meant. one person could not achieve such an aim, but this could (but, it wouldnt necessarily matter that much, as much of this has bled into going out/phone/email anyway)

yes, the damage i mean, is the realisation that everything you say is out there for anyone to see and use how they see fit (99% of the time of course this does not matter, but you can see what happens in the 1%). but perhaps this isnt damage at all, but something cautionary, a home truth

mark s i'm going to email you tonight as i need advice!

mark s and suzy and marcello i have made you all fab. christmas cdrs!!!!! to be posted off before i jet off to new york!

Sadly, I fear doom-e might also be right. But there's no real point apportioning blame now; we have to make the best out of the situation in which we currently find ourselves.

(hey doomie, thanks for the christmas cdr! look forward to it)

and i don't want to associated with a b*p message board (another thing to plinkky consideration is that).....

Anon I think a hostile tabloid reporter could find tons to pick us apart with. When someone on ILX decides it's time to play Junior VICE Mag the policy is same as it ever was - you challenge them, you don't censor them. If nobody challenges them then maybe we deserve what we might get.

anon cos i don't want to be googled: yes possibly we should, though that does actually give unreasonable leverage to posters who want to be jerks (ie instead of being just being ignored till they get bored they can send everyone else into a tizzy); also even if we are all angels for a spell now, we have many of us not been angels always

i have said before: the first thing st peter will do when we get to the pearly gates is take us through the ilxor posts we least want to see again

(the more i think about this, the more i am seriously beginning to see the funny side!!!!!)

then again, if trolls want to troll, the only way of stopping them is to go to "registered only" for x amount of time. really the poster in question should be argued off the hustings by us, but then again if it wasn't him/her, someone else will come and do the equivalent. so it's 24/7 policing - not very practicable.

this i fear requires 48/14 policing and the patience of all saints

BHHAAHAHAHHABHAB...HHAHAHAGHAHGHDBHAHHA..!!!

I would not be in favour of any restriction to the current openness of the boards - let us cross bridges when we come to them rather than carrying around giant pre-fabricated bridges on the off chance we get to a river and breaking our back in the process. (Hmm, that's a bit laboured isn't it).

What exactly would a B N P supporter do round here anyway? ABuse Plinky? And we'd abuse them. Plus ca change.

(I also think the rape quote on ILM is actually very interesting, of course someone who rape someone has a good reason, a good reason as justified to themselves which of course lies outside the morality of the society that they live in. This is not oputside the realms of many similar discussions we've had on ILE and if we are scared of discussing them the the terrorists, or in this case the journalists, have won.)

No, as far as rape is concerned, I'm with Burchill; less understanding and more castrating.

And I am quite happy for Cara Page or anyone else to quote me on that.

The rest of the post that came from regarding the politics an sexual orientation of Joni Mitchell was much more offensive. As of course was the fact that you were accused of writing it. It is unlikely though that tabloid hack is bursting with glee in finding the "Internet Mentalist Against Rape". If she was to she can add my name to the naysayers.

As moderator I am probably over-sensitive to the state of the boards at any given time. I don't think it's a case of carrying around bridges; I do think it's a case of making sure we have the ability to do something in unpleasant situations.

In general, though (and this is not having a go at you Pete, it just knee-jerk annoyed me), it just seems to me that it's always men who want to try to "understand" the mindset of the rapist. Most women (if you believe vox pops and polls; if there's proof otherwise, I'd like to know of it) just want them to be rendered physically incapable of perpetuating such an assault on any other woman in the future.

One other perspective, of course, is that a fair proportion of society (including a good chunk of the legal profession) undoubtedly still DO see "good" reasons for rape (she was asking for it, she was a slag, she did not fulfil her duties as a wife) which are echoed by most of the media - the Daily Mail's rabid hatred of any female who isn't a humble, servile middle-class housewife, for instance.

Also Marcello isn't it the case that men *ought* to be trying to understand it - as a human and a male I want to understand the factors that make other humans and other men commit terrible acts so I can best avoid them. Admitting my potential for hatred or cruelty or even rape or murder seems a healthier starting point than a Mailesque division of society into 'people' and 'Beasts'.

I sometimes wonder to myself in my more Meldrew-esque moments whether extreme preventative measures shouldn't be taken for the greater good, but that brings a whole lot of other dubious issues into play, like eugenics, so I generally keep such thoughts private.

We definitely need, however, to try to understand more how things stand from the point of view of the victim.

cutest post ever! (kittens included!)

i own the first joni mitchell lp, too. i bought it at the cjtr record fair. i have a cassette of court and spark, too.

i'm sorry for causing any bad trouble.

that was rap-rock sincerity.)

you're just digging a bigger hole for yourself, aren't you? you pathetic fuckwit.

GET THIS INTO YOUR STUPID SKULL. RAPE IS SERIOUS. RAPE IS HORRIBLE. RAPE IS ONE OF THE WORST FUCKING CRIMES A MAN CAN EVER DO TO A WOMAN. RAPE DESTROYS LIVES. RAPE IS NOT A JOKE.

DO

YOU

FUCK

ING

UND

ER

STAND?

The one thing you ought to consider before posting anything like that is the effect that it might have on people outside the "charmed circle" of ILx regulars who might come across it. Someone, for instance, who has been raped or whose loved one has been a victim of rape. That consideration should take priority over any attempts to "shock" or be "subtle." End of story.

i.e. a friend's father died and he told me that he was happy that he did not have to repay the money that was recently lent. never under-estimate a mind that is dealing with shock. it can come out rather different than what you would expect.

but rape taken in a non-serious way by someone who has not been raped? dud. dud and more duds.

Also, the point here is that in a court of law the alleged rapist would be being defended on a point of FACT (ie Did he actually put his penis there?) or a point of LAW (ie Is it rape under the law to penetrating orally, having already est^d the fact.) They wouldn't be defending them on moral grounds, but technical grounds.

Well, that's what happened to me, Marcello - and to put it simply - it changes you. You are different. It's a rebirth and a difficult one at that into the world again.

exactly. it's not i love stepford wives.

eg. a lot of the people here apparently used to post on a.m.a? but no longer? people made the decision to leave there when there was nothing more to be gained (i never read it so i have no idea of the reasons).

but somehow this doesnt seem satisfactory, as more would be lost than gained? (not an argument in favour of killfiles, but i understand the desire not to have to read the b*p crap that is imminent here)

i didnt engage with these people, i do not have the time or energy. if this is wrapping yourself in cotton wool, show me the people who dont

again, though, the killfile idea to me seems too much like separatism, it's name and shame, it complicates communication, it makes too many assumptions about posters and it's likely to drive more ppl away than would be prepared to stay. there are only so many kitten threads you can have.

Marcello, for someone who proclaims himself to be wildly talented and clever, you certainly haev a talent for saying painfully stupid things.

but dan, it will/would change the dynamics of the board - but hey, the b*p are going to do that anyways if that plunky guy has his way.

but i would extend my analogy to people who bug you on the bus, boring people in pubs, girls that slime onto you etc. you know, i havent got time for everyone!. no physical threat from these people, but still, i'm busy!

i dont agree with the killfile facility even so, in life you have to deal with people you have no respect for, the same is true online, to an extent this already exists but is extremely small.

yea, i'd rather not bother with such people, but, you know, if n4z1s come here, fine, i've no problem with that, i've got my own killfile facility. the off button

hey, has anyone see Michael Moore's new movie - what do you think of his manipulation of the facts to get his point across. I always find that the fundamental flaw with Moore. He shifts things around to fit in with his worldview. But enjoyable nonetheless.

Anybody see My Little Eye?

The last time I had this argument was four years ago and I was on the other side of it. Hmm.

and michael moore is a smug tedious irritating patronizing man, i want to learn things and told things i dont know, not talked down to, its like class for 13 year olds. he could do so much better if he actually tried

TBH I longed for a killfile facility but Usenet was a very different place. Even if they were in place the whole *plonk* thing was dud dud dud.

this is scary. and sad.
i don't think it should get this radical.

hope this helps.

hope this helps.

this is scary. and sad.
i don't think it should get this radical.

I have to say I've been less inclined to go and see the Moore film since I read Pete's post about it which highlighted the same thing which you say. It's obviously a massive student talking point, especially since I do Journalism.

hope this helps.

I'm not the only person I know who has done this.

As you can see I still lurk, however, bcz I do/did like some of the people here. Also it's Monday.

In the interim I'm more than okay with Dan deleting the fucking stupid threads, as long as he leaves the stupid fucking threads.

ILX should be a register-to-post board. The "Show All Details" link should go to the moderators only. People should post to the board with the implicit understanding that anything they right may be subject to deletion.

i agree with this.

Britney can i get your sister jame spears Email

I also sympathise with the "but whatever" viewpoint.

What's the current crisis???

The dissuading-posts-from-googlers thing is something I sympathize with since I'm one of the people who discovered ILX at random (although not through google), but I don't think it would be out of line to add a line or two to the FAQ about how ILX isn't a big cliquey mccliquety clique and people posting for the first time won't get their heads bitten off.

I suppose though it'd be nice to attract new people!

I agree with N. really. I don't understand how compulsory registration would dissuade hardcore trollers, although it would possibly make them easier to ban.

Registration would at a minimum mean that a user would have to pick a username and log in to post to the forum.

I suppose though it'd be nice to attract new people!

Yes, it would; however, I don't think that making people log in before than can post would drive away every single new person who stumbled across the site. Some people would be turned off by having to log in, but other people are already turned off by the intraposter bitching that already happens on the forum while others are turned off by the scads of attention given to obvious trolls. If we can't please everybody, we might as well just please me and do what I say. (That last statement is mostly a joke, although it does seem to me that the views of everyone who has argued about ILX moderation has held that position as the cornerstone to their argument.)

As far as the argument concerning regular posters not being able to make anonymous posts when discussing sensitive issues, my personal take on that is that if you don't feel comfortable associating yourself with a particular issue or airing your personal business on a publically-accessible data-persistent forum, perhaps you shouldn't join in that particular discussion (or perhaps you should register a seperate "sensitive issues" user for yourself if you wish to share some info but don't want the general readership to instantly associate it with you).

(xpost Matt, you may have missed the spate of threads Gr4p3 S0d4 started today that kicked off this whole discussion. Most of the threads going today actually have nothing to do with this discussion and it probably wouldn't be an issue if GS hadn't also gone on an idiotic thread revival kick late last week.)

I don't think there's a current crisis or anything, really; not to speak for Jess, but based on what he said on some other threads I think he revived it because of the (((((whateverwhatever))))) threads (which Dan might have since deleted? I don't know).

It sort of makes more sense to talk about it when there isn't a crisis, really, because then we're not just talking about the solution to a specific problem at hand and losing track of general usefulness.

As for anonymous posting, that could be offered as a feature - the fact that you are logged in doesn't make that impossible, it would just be yet more coding to do.

Like Ronan and DC I do not understand where this is coming from.

Perhaps unlike them, I do not understand the technological aspects neither.

My thought is, as Tom noted and Dan followed up with, there is simply too much vagueness and confusion on the policies. Limiting the number of mods for this board was actually for the good, but if the mods themselves figure that said policies and approaches need a revision, I have full trust in their judgment to do so for the good of ILX.

My personal feeling, and I've felt this for a while, is that the default setting for threads should be to have search engine indexing turned OFF.

(It's not always clear in today's posts above when people are talking about one and when they're talking about both, especially now that we've drifted to more general "what to do about wankers" talk.)

Me too. I think it's just a matter of too many people posting here now, the amount of posts are overwhelming and the sensibility has changed. So registering, etc. doesn't really do anything to rectify that.

After re-reading the first part of this thread I'm somewhat glad of that.

It's less to do with number of posters and more related to quality of posters - increased board usage has enhanced ILE and ILM as much as its diminished them. Who in their right mind wants to read every thread anyway, even back in 2001?

You can't keep the tone of ILX the same forever but you can try and ensure that what it changes into is worthwhile as well. Anyway, this is totally off-topic and maybe not the place to discuss this.

I'm sure you enjoy ILE a lot more than you let on Nicole ;)

What does that tell us? Alot of things I think, some good some bad.

Discussions about killfiles phrased in terms of preventing malice, abuse, etc., are always going to end up absorbed into a more general discussion of How To Deal With Wankers / ILE Is So Terrible (and there seems to be some of that in the initial thread discussion here, too).

We have to decide whether we want ILx to be a nice cosy village, where everyone knows each other and people can deal with the yokel village idiot or a sprawling metropolis with different quarters and a multitude of strange and sometimes unpleasant posters. I think however the latter is inevitable and despite the drawbacks probably more interesting.

I wish that was the case.

But its not necessarily an either/or thing - I'm sure that the increase in massive 'chat' threads like those listed above, which didn't really exist a year ago, has been the biggest factor in pushing up the number of posts but people who want to talk about Derrida or Iraq or Premiership football still know where to go and the problem occurs when one type of thread starts to predominate over the other.

(This is probably why town meetings work so badly.)

Example of subcommunity: Tottenham Hotspur fans.

I still don't understand the general issues, naturally.

I hope it won't become impossible for me to read, or post to, ilx.

This is possibly the best argument for the existence of smaller boards like ILB.

But now I really, really, REALLY think it's both urgent and key.

Volume is not a problem for me, but friction is. I would love to have the ability to killfile certain posters. And I would love for other posters to have the ability to killfile my posts instead of making personal nastiness.

On the other hand, I really suggest they not worry so much about the narrative flow and post something to a part of the conversation that ended 50 posts ago anyway. I do it all the time: It's great.

(Of course, if they don't plan to consider it or if it's prohibitively difficult to implement, discussion is largely moot anyway.)

If Killfiles are going to be the case, you might as well just solidify your cliques with invitation-only message boards and accomplish what it is that you really want to accomplish--only talking to people you like, or who agree with you.

More importantly, "I wouldn't want to use it" is not a persuasive or meaningful response to the many people who have said "I would." No one seems to have put forth much of an argument that someone using a killfile is going to make ILE less interesting/pleasant/user-friendly for people who aren't.

The problems with it are, I think, important ones. Would you not be able to read questions set by people you had killfiled? Even if they had turned into great threads full of your favourite people? But my biggest concern is that they would make the boards unreadable. If I have killfiled a good few people, any comments I make anywhere will ignore what they have said - I'll repeat things and miss points and think I'm replying to the last post, and therefore don't need to make clear to what I am responding, but there may be several other posts I'm not seeing. This applies to everyone else, all of whom have their own kill-lists so even if I don't use it I suffer the consequences. (Actually, as a mod I would feel obliged not to use them at all.) I read a "just fuck off" or "OTM" and I don't know if it's to the previous post I see or something else. I'm not in any usenet groups, and don't know how they work, but I can't see how we could entirely avoid these problems - how prevalent they would be would of course depend on how many people used them, and how much.

And it still seems to come down to "I don't think this would work well for me, I wouldn't enjoy using killfiles," which doesn't have much to do with whether or not other people should be able to.

Registration is a different matter - these things are entirely different debates, with entirely different pros and cons.

I just rankled at the suggestion that killfiles are necessarily cliquish, nearly as much as I do at the gang of Eeyores who feel the need to bleat that it's all terrible anyway, so why bother pretending it can be improved.

It also seems like killfiles (on a poster basis) would only really work if we required logins.

(my 2p's'th - ILE is by and large a mature forum and newbies are less welcomed and have a harder time getting into the community, not tthrough malice, just human nature. So the problem of "discouraging new blood" is a bit of a red herring as established regulars aren't *really* interested in meeting new people anyway. Jess summed it up accurately with his "I only read 10-15 people" post. I'm all for idealism, but not when it compromises the readability and attitude of this here forum.)

I'm really not sure if this is true - I like it when I see a new name talking about a subject I'm interested it. Even more so if I find out they live in London. But then there are also people who have been posting for months or even years without me noticing them, probably.

I think he was referring to threads started by familiar people. It's pretty hard to avoid reading posts by people you don't know.

Everything is publicly visible. Registration is required to post. Registration requires email verification. (ie the system sends you an email with a special string in it which you must then put back into the system to have your account activated - this should be familiar to most net users)

The pros:
- Any problem users can be banned, and thus forced to re-register to post again. Re-registration would require them to get a new email address thus causing them to waste some time, making it generally more difficult to disrupt the board.

The cons:
- Random-googler syndrome would be cut down drastically. (if we made the signup procedure as straightforward as possible, and made it so that it takes you back to the page you clicked the 'sign up' link from after you've validated, then this could be remedied somewhat)
- Becomes more difficult for people to establish gimmick personas (although I don't see this as much of a problem, really)

It could still be possible to post anonymously - except moderators would be able to see who posted what. (although we'd require some sort of active request to see that info - similar to the IP-searching that is required now - so that privacy could still be observed while nuisance posters censored)

Killfiles are something that I don't think are really necessary, especially if my above suggestions are implemented.

yes. maybe it wuold be a good idea to ad the naem of the person that potsed the thread next to the title on the new asnwers page so people can see if the thraed is by soemone they trsut and like.

the last forum i patricipated in before ilx was taekn off google and made loging in madnaroty and wihtin six monhts the plaec was ful of inbred "thraeds where i say"s and lol and fap thraeds and nothing but. so iam against it. i know im not a regular poster here and all but trsut me if you gate tthis comunity you will miss the trolls and the goglers one day.

I used to be on metafilter, which is just fucking huge and impossible to keep up with, and which has always required registration. But it's a great resource too, if you can get past all the rules-lawyering. Registration is usually closed, but the guy who runs it periodically opens up registration whenever the server can handle it. I really think the server should dictate what we do.

I'm not sure to whom we're directing all these ideas and complaints to anyway.

huge. itwas about 70s notsalgia originaly, then many sub boards were added. 60s, 80s, 90s, films music, yuo name it. the board where posters just talkd about thier everyday ocurences was the most entertainign part. the heart of it if you wil. until itwas made acessible (read & write) to loged in posters only.

And using Killfiles is "bad manners"? Like posting the same rubbish on every single thread or continual baiting of another poster is *not* bad manners?

On my email, I have a "junk" folder where I can banish repeat offenders off the face of my inbox. I just wish I had the same option on ILX, that's all.

I mean, think of the benefits, Suzy, you could have an entire message board comprised of nothing but Momus-posts and never have to deign to talk to any of the other flora and fauna.

(Just because something is hypocritcal doesn't make the sentiment wrong.)

However, I'm beginning to think mandatory registration might be a good idea. The amount of offensive/pointless googlers has been quite large lately, and I think anyone who would like post sensible things here wouldn't mind getting registered.

however, kate, you've been purdy damn snipey as of late.

just my observation, mind.

Maybe Doomie is right and you haven't changed, I've just noticed it more lately.

I hope it would discourage many of the annoying trolls. A short statement as part of the registration process might make clear that we are not, for instance, a hair dye advice centre, so might reduce the irrelevant and misplaced stuff. If it's designed and implemented well, it shouldn't prove too onerous to join and therefore it shouldn't be too much of a disincentive.

Registration with a valid email might be worth exploring if the coding to do so isn't too difficult or time-consuming for the little code squirrels.

Taken out of context, this is almost like a Zen aphorism.

All the more so, because it would not actually work in practice!

Er... because you don't want to read them. By way of example, kill files make usenet much easier to read. ILX doesn't quite have the signal-to-noise ratio of usenet yet, but as more and more people find ILX, the sheer aggregate number of threads and posts will increase. As it stands I only read half the threads anyway.

Awww! I thought you were lurking?

I still love Jon but not in...that way...anymore...

Yeah, I highly recommend it.

adsffdasdssdf

Marcello OTM

however, kate, you've been purdy damn snipey as of late.

-- doomie x, Monday, 19 April 2004 09:48 (3 years ago) Bookmark Link

do you guys have 486s?
-- I LUV FAETTY (ex machina), Tuesday, June 15, 2004 1:37 PM (3 years ago) Bookmark Link

DX2-50

A turbo button is no longer seen on most mainstream personal computers.

CHECKS OUT MY NEW MATHS CO-PRO look at dem povray renders.