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Blocking from interacting makes sense and from showing up in the feed/search results also makes sense, blocking from viewing at all encourages trolls and deceiv

Blocking from interacting makes sense and from showing up in the feed/search results also makes sense, blocking from viewing at all encourages trolls and deceivers. E.g. I’ve noticed cases where user A replies to user B, writes something pretending to carry on a conversation, then immediately after tweeting goes to block user B such that it looks like, to passing readers, that user B made a decision to stop responding. Which of course, in addition to wrecking the credibility of user A and deceiving user B, slightly reduces the credibility of every other conversation chain on the site and the site itself, every time that is discovered.

hombre_fatal 2y ago
Lately I've noticed on Reddit people blocking me the second they respond to me so that they have the last word in an e-fight*. Horrible implementation. *yeah, 20 years on the internet and I still have that dog in me
- MichaelZuo 2y ago
  Yeah reddit is full of shady tricks like that, either as design choices, admin policies, or by mod coalitions of major subreddits. Edit: And probably via other ways I haven’t heard of. So much so, and considering it has gone uncorrected for many years, that it seems likely that’s the intended purpose of the system, to dupe naive teenagers and other susceptible groups.
  - danslacker 2y ago
    [flagged]
    - MichaelZuo 2y ago
      Your point…?
Pxtl 2y ago
I agree that that's a problem but this is the wrong solution. Letting the blockee see the blocker doesn't help them correct the record if the blocker has replied to them before blocking. They're still not permitted to reply. You can unblock-reply-block and do that all day under either model. Imho the right answer is just to a) Hide the blocker's replies to the blockee in an expand-to-view mode (like Twitter's View Hidden Replies feature) so that in a large conversation the non-blocking parties are the emphasized ones. and b) When shown explain that the reply was hidden because the reply-er has blocked the reply-ee. I assume they want to make blocking semi-secret so it's not showing dirty laundry all over twitter to people who aren't involved in the feud, but either way if party A and B had an argument and then one side unilaterally prevents the other from continuing it, that should made visible to the reader.

hombre_fatal 2y ago

Lately I've noticed on Reddit people blocking me the second they respond to me so that they have the last word in an e-fight*. Horrible implementation. *yeah, 20 years on the internet and I still have that dog in me

MichaelZuo 2y ago
Yeah reddit is full of shady tricks like that, either as design choices, admin policies, or by mod coalitions of major subreddits. Edit: And probably via other ways I haven’t heard of. So much so, and considering it has gone uncorrected for many years, that it seems likely that’s the intended purpose of the system, to dupe naive teenagers and other susceptible groups.
- danslacker 2y ago
  [flagged]
  - MichaelZuo 2y ago
    Your point…?

Pxtl 2y ago

I agree that that's a problem but this is the wrong solution. Letting the blockee see the blocker doesn't help them correct the record if the blocker has replied to them before blocking. They're still not permitted to reply. You can unblock-reply-block and do that all day under either model. Imho the right answer is just to a) Hide the blocker's replies to the blockee in an expand-to-view mode (like Twitter's View Hidden Replies feature) so that in a large conversation the non-blocking parties are the emphasized ones. and b) When shown explain that the reply was hidden because the reply-er has blocked the reply-ee. I assume they want to make blocking semi-secret so it's not showing dirty laundry all over twitter to people who aren't involved in the feud, but either way if party A and B had an argument and then one side unilaterally prevents the other from continuing it, that should made visible to the reader.