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

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.