Do you have a criteria for what qualifies as block-worthy offence or are you just doing it when you feel like it?
Bonus question: how long is your block list?
Tankies go straight to the Shadow Realm
My blocklist is 30~40 users long. [For reference, my blocklist in Reddit reached 400 or so.]
To keep it short, I typically block people who, egregious or consistently:
- show lack of reasoning, even if I agree with the conclusion
- misrepresent what others say
- take things off context to judge them, even if I agree with the judgement
- vomit lots of “hard” certainty on things that they cannot reasonably know (e.g. the others’ emotional states over the internet)
- engage in passive aggressiveness (note that I tolerate some clear hostility, just not pass-aggro)
- show clear signs of sealioning (e.g. “I don’t understand” + misrepresentation of what someone else said)
- tell others shit like “trust me” = “I expect you to be a gullible piece of rubbish”
Note that “egregious or consistently” are key words here. Like, I’m not going out of my way to block someone out of a brainfart; this is not some sort of petty revenge, it’s just removing from my sight people who I believe to not contribute with my overall Lemmy experience. I also don’t take issue when people block me, for whatever reason they might have.
I’ll reply to myself to avoid editing the above. The other user made me realise that what I said about pass-aggro is unclear - since the expression is used with multiple meanings.
In this specific context, by passive aggressiveness, I mean “an utterance showing politeness as a disguise for rudeness”.
I’ll give you guys an example. Imagine that Alice says “I saw a potato tree today”. And Bob replies to Alice one of the following:
- “Potatoes do not grow on trees.”
- “Potato tree? Are you braindead or what?”
- “Yeah sure, and I saw some unicorns today. Because you know, potatoes totally grow on trees, right?”
- “Oh dear perhaps you’re a bit confused, so let me enlighten you. Potatoes do not grow on trees. I understand that this might be a bit too complex for you to understand, but put on some effort, okay?”
The first three are not pass-aggro. #1 is simply dry (no attempt at politeness or rudeness); #2 is simply rude (I’m typically OK with that within limits). #3 uses irony and sarcasm in such an obvious way that it comes off as simply rude, there’s no attempt to use the irony to disguise the insult. Only #4 is pass-aggro, as it calls Alice stupid and lazy in a disguised way.
I tend to block people who do this because they rub me off the wrong way - it shows a lack of dignity to be upfront that you don’t see in plain rudeness.
Sealioning is a made up term by those too lazy to explain a concept and looking to antagonise others because they “cannot possibly be unaware of X fact that I care so much about”.
Funnily enough saying someone is sealioning falls within the passive-aggressive behaviour you seem to despise so much.
Sealioning is the discussion equivalent of a DoS (denial of service) attack. In both, the content of the reply is irrelevant; the goal is to flood the person/machine with multiple requests, until they reach a limit and stop dropping drop the requests altogether.
And while the concept has some problems because it handles some esoteric babble called “intentions” (see: “goal”), it’s still useful when you focus on the behaviour instead.
Funnily enough saying someone is sealioning falls within the passive-aggressive behaviour you seem to despise so much.
Pass-aggro is about tone, not content. You can state something like “you’re sealioning” in a passive aggressive way, or a rude way, or under a bald-on record, so goes on.
[Edit reason: phrasing.]
Sealioning is the discussion equivalent of a DoS (denial of service) attack. In both, the content of the reply is irrelevant; the goal is to flood the person/machine with multiple requests, until they reach a limit and stop dropping the requests altogether.
Thank you for putting it this way. This clarifies some things for me.
I block assholes. It drives me up the wall when someone is disrespectful for no reason. I also dislike those who get unnecessarily aggressive on the first message because the previous comment doesn’t align with their views. I’ll usually set a boundary and let people correct their attitude. After that, I’ll block.
I’m also considering blocking those who make a hobby of subverting the previous comment by twisting people’s words and overloading them with something the person did not mean to say, but those are trickier.
I’m also considering blocking those who make a hobby
of subverting the previous comment by twisting people’s words and overloading them with something the person did not mean to say, but those are trickier.
What do you have against hobbies? Why do you think that people should only eat, work and sleep? Do you loathe people that much??? /s
Serious now. I block this sort of people, and heavily recommend others to do the same. They’re a waste of time; even if you clarify what they’re distorting they’ll do it again, and again. It is a bit tricky because genuine miscommunication also happens, but I typically solve that by checking the profile for consistent behaviour. The “controversial” sorting works wonders here.
Pretty much my criteria exactly. An off remark is fine, we all fuck up once in awhile, but consistent rude or dishonest behaviour gets them a block. It’s not worth my time and emotional energy to deal with angry children. I get enough of that at work already.
What I think is funny is someone I blocked also responded to your comment.
That’s why I tag people who do this. It becomes much easier to figure out who is consistently being a shithead or pushing an agenda.
What are you using to tag users? I want to do this too.
EDIT: nevermind, you mentioned it in another comment (Boost). It wouldn’t work for me as I’m using Lemmy from a computer. Still, it’s some great functionality, I wish that it existed for the web interface too. (There was/is a Firefox extension for that in Reddit, and I miss it. It wasn’t only useful to tag “bad” users, but also good ones - I used it all the time in r/linguistics to tag the expertise area of some laymen.)
I’ve blocked a few bots but I would only block an actual person if they’re harassing me. I’d rather downvote or report people that are saying hateful things.
Ad hominem -> block.
