On Killfiles

[charmian]

Some time in the future, Dreamwidth is planning to offer a killfile. The specs say that two levels of killfile are planned. The first will collapse posts and comments by the user who has been killfiled. The second will remove all traces of the killfiled user from your view (with the exception of access lists on profiles, and comm membership lists).

Poll #120

Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 130

View Respondents

Would you use the killfile described above?

View Answers

Yes, I would use it
66 (50.8%)

No, I would not use it
17 (13.1%)

Not sure/don't know
47 (36.2%)

To borrow foxfirefey's question, what effects do you think killfiles (if put into practice as described above) would have on Dreamwidth and the way people use it?

Comments

[damned_colonial]

I might use the "remove all traces" version for people on comms who really annoyed me.

[charmian]

Yeah, I think that situation might be one of the main inspirers of killfile use.

[invisionary]

Yes, this. I wouldn't use it in a personal journal, but sometimes when you have a pervasive troll removing all traces is quite appropriate.

[phoenixsong]

Yep. Someone whose posts generally make me see red and generally leave me wanting to abandon ship on what is otherwise a perfectly good comm? Killfile seems like the best solution.

[tzipwich]

I would probably use it only on people I know to be trolls, and annoying trolls at that.

[ladyvox]

I would probably only use it as a last resort to get rid of people who are either trolls or otherwise seem to be following me around in a manner that creeps me out/annoys me.

In other words: I would like for the feature to be present, yet I do not know when and whether I'd need/want to actually use it:)

[lassarina]

This, basically.

[ex_beautyofgr925]

I pretty much agree with ladyvox. Dreamwidth seems to be more focused on individual user privacy, and also on giving the responsibility to the user to control their internet experience. (yay!) That said, I can't imagine NOT having a killfile of some sort.

As to how it would affect how the site is used, my first thought is that it would cut out some of the trolling/drama that tends to overtake communities. I like the idea of it, as a user, because it provides a way to stop harassment, and allows me to control my internet experience. It may even act as a deterrent for the trolling types - except the really persistent ones (those that create new accounts and find ways around it, etc.) I was trying to think if there would be objections to this sort of feature, and I can't really. You're not limiting anyone's speech/expression, after all. Just allowing individual users the opportunity to mute them out. :)

[holyschist]

It would remove temptation to argue with annoying people for people like me with so-so self-control. I'd love to be able to pretend really annoying people just didn't exist.

I think it would reduce overall drama, and might, hopefully, remove some of the incentive to troll.

[melannen]

I've been thinking about this, and I suppose a killfile that included an automatic ban_set in any journal or community you control would get around my objections.

So - killfile as a sitewide extension of ban, yay! I just don't want killfile to replace ban, because that leads to a situation where all newcomers see are the trolls that all the regulars have killfiled. (Although this still leaves the problem of commuities with AWOL owners using killfiles instead of group modding, but maybe with DW's new commuity tools there will be fewer completely orphaned comms.)

[charmian]

That though, seems to be more of a problem with bad moderation (meaning situation where all newcomers see are the trolls, etc), right? In a usual situation, people wouldn't killfile a true troll (troller of a community) because a community mod would ban them for breaking the rules, right? I suspect the DW owners will have a policy just like LJ's where an abandoned comm can be transferred to an active mod.

[kerrick]

While I think it would be tempting, I think I would try hard to avoid using it. I think it would be damaging to communities if people could cease to see each others' posts at the drop of a hat, but everyone else could still see those same posts. It would probably lead to some very strange, not to say incomprehensible, interactions.

I am also suspicious of the way the internet allows us to avoid dissenting opinions. I'd most likely be tempted to use this to avoid any vociferous Ron Paul supporters I came into regular contact with, for instance, because I disagree heartily with many of their views and those of their hero and for some reason tend to become angry about that when we talk. But that would mean that I can't actually address our disagreements productively. And those things we do have in common—namely a deep suspicion of the presently-failing debt-based monetary system—I wouldn't have the opportunity to talk with them about. It's likely that I wouldn't regret that much, but never having my prejudices challenged would only reinforce them.

I'd much prefer the version that left posts collapsed by default, so that I could engage with them when I felt I had the energy. I'd also be interested in a version that expires after a user-settable amount of time. If I were just really annoyed with someone for a particular interaction and needed time to cool off, that might be useful.

[charmian]

Hmm, why do you think it would necessarily be damaging? What would happen? It would be bad if the moderator did this and stopped performing their duties, but then that's an individual failure of the moderator, IMHO.

Eh, I think that's a personal choice, and there are some people not worth engaging with. People have to actively choose whether to killfile a person, I think, so that process of choosing will be going on, and it isn't necessarily that they don't think they are wrong/evil, but they might simply find their content irrelevant or uninteresting.

Longwinded example

[kerrick]

Well, I'm imagining situations in which hypothetical DW user SirTalksalot posts the zillionth longwinded and annoying ramble, and DW user Owmyeyes KFs hir. Time goes by and Owmyeyes forgets zie's KFed SirTalksalot. Then SirTalksalot posts a short, to the point post about hir mother just having died; Owmyeyes, not being aware of this, posts a lighthearted compilation of filthy "your mom" jokes immediately thereafter. SirTalksalot posts a complaint about Owmyeyes' insensitive bastardry, which Owmyeyes doesn't see, mods scramble, Owmyeyes has no idea why hir friendly mods are suddenly being so thin-skinned, and it takes a lot of time and hurt feelings and people make judgments about SirTalksalot and Owmyeyes with insufficient information before it all gets sorted out. If KFing is very easy and relatively common, this sort of misunderstanding could be relatively common as well, ranging from "didn't you see that QuestionMark just posted that question right before you?" "No, er, uh, I've KFed hir, sorry" to the rather clusterfing scenario I described above.

I also think who one has KFed would get politicky very fast, like "defriending" back in the Old Place. Once it becomes common knowledge that you've KFed someone, there would be questions, allegations, accusations, and eventually I'd have to own up to the fact that I had a very stupid one night stand and am now just too embarrassed to... oh, dear, I've gone and typed that out loud, haven't I? *blush*

None of this is in itself sufficient reason NOT to allow KFing. (Which I'm already calling kiffing in my head, so I guess it'll probably stick.) It'll cause new and exciting kinds of problems, and that's what we're all trying to do probably is find the best set of problems to work on.

Re: Longwinded example

[charmian]

Wouldn't in that situation, the mods specifically reference SirTalksAlot's post in their communications with Owmyeyes? I don't see why they wouldn't.(though posting about death of your relatives and filthy jokes doesn't really occur in most communities, IME. Most of the time the comm would be about death of relatives and filthy jokes would be off-topic, or vice versa...)

Huh... but defriending is something publicly visible, and KFing, I am guessing, wouldn't be publicly visible? It would be even less visible than banning.

Re: Longwinded example

[torachan]

I think the repeated posts scenario is more likely than the former, and that could definitely get annoying.

[axelrod]

I think wank is way more damaging to comms than occasional killfiling would be. In any event, we *know* what happens when two or more people have very different opinions in the same comm and keep butting heads over it - and we know it's not good. What might happen if at least one of those people could ignore the posts and comments of the other/s? imo, there'd be an improvement. Also, I support anything which allows an individual user to control the content ze sees. People can say what they like, but that doesn't mean everyone has to read it, and being able to more automatically filter out the things you *know* you don't want to read seems desirable to me.

It looks like there's going to be two levels of killfile - both the kind that collapses posts and the kind that eliminates all posts and comments. So we both get what we want : )

[torachan]

I have the killfile on LJ, but I have only used it once to avoid seeing someone on my foflist. It's always possible such a thing could happen again, that I would be so upset just seeing someone's posts that I had to use it, but I kind of doubt it, so I voted no.

[ratcreature]

I already use killfiles to not see posts on LJ. And not actually for trolls or even people I can't stand. For example I'm subscribed to fanart comm on LJ, and there is another member who posts art that even is the small preview pictures really, really squicked me, but was on topic for the comm and within its rules. And I still wanted to see the other art in the comm and see those announcements on my flist, just not that one poster's art. So I added a killfile code to my style, and just don't see their posts. It's nothing personal, I mean, I don't even know that poster.

[azurelunatic]

There's at least one person where my interaction with them does no good to them, to anyone surrounding us, and would only do good for me if my blood pressure were dangerously low.