in reply to No Anonymous Reply Option

I think that this idea is bad for several reasons.

First off, AM is a valuable part of the community. It allows people to “try before they buy”. It allows people to eschew recognition and still post. It allows people to post when legally encumbered.

Secondly, singling out any single user in this manner is just not right. It’s discrimination, plain and simple. I do support allowing users to not see posts from any users they want – that is, an “ignore posts by…” user setting. However, that’s unlikely to be written, largely because nobody has the time/effort required to write such a largely useless feature.

Thirdly, and perhaps most importantly, posts written by you are not for your consumption alone. Just because you do not want to see AM posts in reply to yours does not mean that other people are so inclined.

Warning: Unless otherwise stated, code is untested. Do not use without understanding. Code is posted in the hopes it is useful, but without warranty. All copyrights are relinquished into the public domain unless otherwise stated. I am not an angel. I am capable of error, and err on a fairly regular basis. If I made a mistake, please let me know (such as by replying to this node).

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Re: Re: No Anonymous Reply Option
by u914 (Pilgrim) on Nov 24, 2003 at 01:10 UTC
    Hey there theorbtwo... i agree that disallowing AM posts is not a good idea, but i also think an "ignore posts by ..." is not a good idea.

    Let me tell you why i think so.....

    In a purely social situation it could be a great feature, allowing people to not be bothered by other people with whom they don't agree or dislike intensely.

    The thing is, perlmonks seems primarily to be a "help board" community, where the primary goal is to ask questions, gain knowledge and help-and-be-helped with all things Perl-related. To allow people to *dis*-allow posts/replies (which is the logical result of don't-view-xxx's-posts) could only result in people not getting the answer or help they need, because they refuse to listen to the words of that particular helper.

    For example, some of the local wizards/saints/Perl-ghods have fairly snooty attitudes sometimes. They likely have every reason to have such attitudes, and i note that .sig disclaimers abound. Still, these monks can sometimes be irritating, and we all know that this sometimes results in "personality voting" and such.

    If some monk has irritated me through her/his (apparent) attitude, and i 'block' replies from him/her, chances are that the next time i ask a question i'll miss replies from that monk.

    Given that ((insert saint here)) knows a whole hell of a lot more about Perl than i, it would be a shame to miss that advice. Worse, others may not answer, since someone a whole hell of a lot more knowledgable (said saint) has already answered.

    Anyhow, that's a lot more about it than i intended to type.
    cheers!

[reply]
      Howdy!

      ...of course, if *you* choose to not see replies from poster X, and thereby miss a reply to your question, that is only on your head, self-inflicted. We'll assume you are an adult, making adult choices, and we get to point and laugh.

      Yeah, killfiles ought to be used sparingly...but there are times where someone has demonstrated a persistent cluelessness such that you are willing to risk missing a useful reply from that person to avoid seeing all the crap.

      yours,
      Michael
[reply]

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