h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I'm concerned about the feature to block selected users from subscribing to your guide entries. I think it could be seen as divisive, and not in the spirit of an open community.

I'm happy to see how it gets used, though.

Icy

Well, I'm unsure about how much prominence this feature needs, but past experience has shown that there are circumstances where it's necessary. The existing Friends List allows anyone to add you as a 'Friend' and we have had people in the past getting extremely upset that someone they don't consider a friend has added them as a friend. The block feature merely allows users to control their own experience. I think it should probably be 'deemphasized' and not made such an overt feature in the UI. I'd be interested to hear other people's thoughts on the subject.

I'll let you know once I find that somebody blocked me.

So, it just stops people adding you as a friend. Presumably, so that the person cannot easily got to their 'friends' space or entries?

I do not use my friend list I just have a link straight from my browser favourites. So, unless the block has other functionality I cannot see the point of it.

OK read a bit more on it...still not sure exactly what blocking users will do apart from annoy the blocked people...and hence give some more ammo to them...

It'll allow anyone who feels they're being stalked on h2g2 to do something about it, I suppose. That's good.

On the other hand it's not that good to undermine the principle of this being a community site where everything is on public view, so perhaps serious stalking is better dealt with offsite with the staff. As far as I know, it's very rare anyway. I'm only aware of one researcher some years ago and now banned.

On yet another hand, if it gets used fpr playground style tit for tat blocking - well it's an outlet for aggro that doesn't do anyone else any harm and doesn't take up staff time.

My gut reaction is not to like it, to be honest. And if you do block someone who is stalking with intent to upset you, you've let them know they've got to you. Which is troll-feeding, isn't it?

Exactly, we have a complaints system that generally works. The one thing I like about this site is that everything is out in the open (apart the identity of the phantom-yiksers). We self-censor the site. We know who is annoying whom and generally the ones doing the stalking leave the site or are pulled up. Where open and frank discussion is a mainstay of this site starting to block users who might simply be able to put up a good argument about why vertain entries etc are totally incorrect is worrying. What happens if we get another scientologist like we did earlier this year who decided that cutting and pasting from articles was good enough to get into the guide. Would they start blocking anyone who started complaining about the content etc?

I don't see that you really need to block somebody.
If you want to test something, take an older entry as test area. Or create a new entry, publissh iut, and if you don't want others to know about it just yet, 'delete' it. Your sunscribers would just get the
'this guide entry has been deleted by the user....' message.
Jim, do you see a way we can unsubscribe from specific entries without unsubscribing from the user in general?

You can't currently remove an individual article from the list, but it would be fairly easy to implement.

I must be pretty thick today. I've read and re-read about this new feature and fail to see the purpose of it. The info page gives a list of newly created entries regardless whether they're for the EG or otherwise. You can still read articles even if a user blocks you simply by going to their PS. If this feature stops you posting a comment to the article and someone feels strongly enough to want to then they can post a message in the writers ps still or does 'blocking' a subscriber stop any means of posting to that particular researcher? If so then its a devisive tool. If the writer is a friend and by blocking access to an article also means blocking access to the friend as a whole then again, whats the point, other than cause potential grief? You can un-sub from any conversation at any time anyway whether thats in regard to an article or general chat.

Perhaps someone could enlighten me as to what this feature is really about and what use it is. I have these thick moments now and again, sorry.

Being able to remove single entries rather than the current 'either-or' would be neat, Jim.

But isn;t that what the yikes button is and the rules and regs of the site? If someone isn't breaking the rules then entries should remain whether you agree with them or not.

Blocking was implemented solely as a means for users to control their own space. Nothing more. Simply because features like this can sometimes be used abusively. We wanted to ensure that if people felt they were being 'stalked' (and it has happened) they can at least control this particular feature. I'd love to be proved wrong, but I thought the friends list was entirely innocuous and that proved not to be the case.

By putting the ability to block in the user's hands, it's then up to individual users to settle any differences themselves without having to get the staff involved. And blocking has no effect on any user's ability to read what's on the site.

Any feature can cause potential grief, starting with the Post button. That's just life.

And as I said, I'm all in favour of hiding the block feature away, rather than making it appear as important as the rest of the features. I'd welcome any suggestions of ways to retain the feature without giving it as much emphasis as it currently has.

Thanks Jim. As long as it is just for controlling someones own space then that is a good thing in my opinion. Anywhere else just defeats the object of the site.

The 'watching-users' tag provides a list of who has tagged a body as a friend. Might a 'remove' option be incorporated into that list? Similar to the option to 'delete' from the friends' list?

Do what was done with the 'complaints' link on entries - make sure it's there, but in a place people have to search for. So it is only used by people who really need to.

I'd like to be able to 'remove' individual entries without removing a person entirely, because if I'm subscribed to someone prolific I don't want a huge list from their space, just an alert that they've written something new.

It's not much, but you could put the 'remove and block' one click away under a 'Manage subscribers page' like the 'manage subscriptions' link under 'subscribed Articles'.

If we have it, it needs to be reasonably findable.

> "It'll allow anyone who feels they're being stalked on h2g2 to do something about it, I suppose."

I don't see that it would. They could still go over to your PS page and look at your list of articles, couldn't they? I've seen nothing to imply that MA lists have suddenly become secret. So anyone who already knows even a minimal amount about h2g2 could still do whatever it is they've been doing before (NB since I don't know what that is, I can't test for it explicitly). This feature doesn't appear to impact on any pre-existing features much (though it might make the plain skin less desirable).

I agree with ST and SEF - any blocked user would still be able to either find any new entries on the info page, or on the PS directly, so I don't see the advantage of blocking a subscriber.
And Researcher Dot Dot Dot, I didn't mean to 'remove' an entry (which is still not the same as yikes it, imo), I guess I chose the wrong word there, I thought of an option to unsubscribe from an entry that is not all that interesting (like an empty entry, titled 'Test' for example).

>>I agree with ST and SEF - any blocked user would still be able to either find any new entries on the info page, or on the PS directly, so I don't see the advantage of blocking a subscriber. <<

Often in conflict situations perception of control is just as important as actual control. Using the block feature can allow someone to set a boundary for *themselves. It doesn't control the other person who might be harassing or stalking them, but it does give the person using the feature a sense of control again. I think that is useful.

Theoretically I don't see the feature as divisive. People's actions cause division not tools design for another purpose. If the block button is made less obvious I think it's useful tool.