- Does Hubski not ever ban users?
Even better! We let YOU PERSONALLY ban ANYONE YOU WANT.
In the real world, people have to be convicted of heinous crimes to be 'blocked' from society. Imagine if you could mute anyone you don't like, and never hear from them again! On Hubski, you can! With just three simple steps:
1. Go to https://hubski.com/user/personidontlike
2. On the left side of the page, under 'moderation,' click the 'block' checkbox
3. Click the nearby 'Update' button
And voilà! BUT WAIT! THERE'S MORE!
You can also Hush, Filter, and Mute. And for only three easy payments of...
In all seriousness, there are two general governmental approaches to handling undesirables: Nanny State (often employed by Socialism), and Liberalism (Classical, Social; a.k.a. Libertarianism). We take the liberal approach. We don't tell you who you can and can't hear from. We're not your parents. You can block anyone you want.
If someone is generally bad, everyone blocks them, nobody sees them, they eventually get bored, and leave. This generally works. Until someone posts something particularly nutty, and a lot of other people start shouting 'ban the witch slanderer!' and we admins become confused. We're like, 'But, you can block them? Did you know you can block them? The button is right over there. You'll never hear from them again. Do you see the button? It's...it's right there.'
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I wrote this last year during the HubskiGate, and never posted it. Figured things have calmed down enough to share.
Well, obviously I can't say for sure, but I am more than 90% that it was him. Neither of the two alt accounts made comments, but they all posted to the same type of stuff he posted, using the same keywords, and even repeating tags that he used routinely. Like I said, shit was weird.
I was just reading that comment when I noticed the typo in the comment I replied to, the user was Grendel but this reply said grendl, I went to https://hubski.com/user/grendl and it gave me an error but now I could go to https://hubski.com/user/Grendel and read a little more history. Thank you.
I forgot about that guy. His run was a brief ink spill that was quickly cleaned up.
Enlighten me, I wasn't here when the HubskiGate happened, what is it?
TLDR Someone posted something particularly nutty, and a lot of other people started shouting 'ban the witch slanderer!' I don't remember the exact issue. I think it was someone who got pissed off at losing an argument, and made a post saying "UserX is a pedophile." And a bunch of people were like "Libel! Ban him!" Ironically, the targetted user was very mature about it, and didn't actually care.
While an admirable sentiment, the tricky part is that a vaguely skillful troll won't make that play unless they're reasonably certain it'll be effective. So if everybody can be more mature than the troll, it's a win. But if everyone were more mature than the troll, there never would have been fisticuffs in the first place.
I had a feeling it was you in this argument. I honestly think most people don't go into things trying to troll, they just adopt that role when they realize there is no other way out except admitting they were wrong. It's essentially the slightly more grown up version of " ya... well you smell !" Granted I didn't see the fisticuffs in this particular argument but I feel like there will always generally be a little once the troll snaps since it's already part way into an argument. So I don't think they had a plan, I think they just got angry and started calling people pedophiles. I guess I have less faith in a trolls ability to think through their actions.
I love having the choice to use them. As a principle, I don't mute people. I just don't like that style of moderation tool. I hush and filter people like no tomorrow though. I've even filtered people on here I like but whose posts I don't live seeing all the time. I agree with you whole heartedly the the moderation tools are something the Hubski team should get huge props for, among most the other features of this awesome site.