Option to block users comments

This site has a small handful of loud and toxic members. I believe a good way deal with these irritating trolls would be to allow people to hide their comments. They have thousands of negative comments around these forums and although I love what this site has to offer the overall attitude of some of these forums is hard to stomach sometimes and makes me not want to be a part of this community. From talking to other people I know I am not alone. I can only think of positive outcomes if there was an option to block user comments from your feed.

I agree that there are toxic members. Some people post just to complain about others. Some create an entire thread in an effort to spread this negative energy.

MP needs an option to allow users to create a custom list of people they don't like. We'll call it the hate list feature. Everyone should have their own personal hate list. Adding people to the hate list should be quick and easy. We should be able to cut off the voice of others off with a single click.

Agreed. Even better, those that get blocked get to see how many people have blocked them. Once they realize that nobody can hear their nonsense since they have been blocked, they may give their posts a second thought since they want to be heard.

I’m sure we all can think of a dozen users that provide zero value to this community and would love to simply delete them from view.

I believe pearldrummersforum had this option, so I think it is something that can be implemented. With that said, a good way of handling trolls is to not feed them. The MP mods/admins could learn from PBNation, since PBNation does a great job at handling trolls.

If you're looking for a safe place, then I recommend searching for climbing groups on Facebook.

This is a GREAT idea and it does no harm to anyone.

By my blocking member "X" it does not hurt them or me and anyone can block me as well.

I do not see any downside.

PLEASE add this feature.

Ignore or dont read. A block feature would be silly. Or don’t get upset at the obvious trolling which is in all online communities.

Can’t handle it? Definitely stay away from YouTube comments then. 

Yes the options are: grow a pair, get a spine, don't click on the forums, stop being so sensitive...... Not everyone gets a participation award on MP. 

I also do not see a down side.

There is no downside to the end-user.  No need to "grow a pair" or "get over" people's posts.  

You, the user, would be able to filter out what you do not want to see.  How is this bad for anyone (except people that are trying to upset others)?

The only downside would be that "perceived" trolls would not have as large an audience to try to piss off.

There literally is no downside to this feature.

I'm not necessarily looking for a safer place, nor do I want any vindication out of this by letting members know that they've been blocked. The block feature wouldn't harm anyone, if you just want to block some persons comments, who is that bringing down? You're suggesting I avoid all forums so you can not give somebody a block user button that just makes ones comments invisible to me? You're saying all online communities are as bad as this one?! I'm not too stuck on preserving this community, you'll notice that if you read my profile, but I recently was reading through some posts that made me sick, including people talking shit about somebody who just died free soloing. His friends are part of that forum... The real point is steering this site away from being like 4chan, which I don't think it's too far off from. I do like mountainproject and think it's a valuable resource to climbing in general so thought I'd share a simple, harmless solution that preserves everyone's best interest. If you like trolls I suggest you check out 4chan, you'll love it.

I don't know if that is THE solution but I think some real minimal effort could be done to keep this a bad ass climbers site that awesome people want to be a part of, not just ...{edited out by admin}

Also, anyone else noticing the trolls trying to bring this idea down?

Hmmmm... interesting proposal. Block anyone you don't agree with from your life. Sounds healthy! Believe it or not people may have a different worldview from your own. Who knew?!

I have a good name for it, the "whitewash" filter. 

You have the choice to ignore thoughts and posts, use that choice. I believe in you, you can do it.

If nothing else MP, please consider the minor change I ​suggested​​​ so end-users can filter it more reliably and efficiently.

It is not realistic to hope people will stop biting on "troll" posts so I prefer to just filter people that have reliably shown to add nothing of value to me and any replies to them. If MP is worried about "engagement" dropping, I'd say this keeps me from checking out of threads or the forum in general when they are overrun with things I am not interested in. And allowing me to do it on my end saves you having to code and process it for everybody, if that is a problem.

With Supertopo closing shop yer probably gonna see a lot of newcomers here.

It also isn't a matter of not being able to "handle it" - it is not interesting to me and I don't even want to spend my mental effort or tax my finger scrolling while I'm trying to goof off at work. I hope MP is not aiming to be on par with YouTube commenting?

If I'm at a cafeteria and some dudes with powerful BO sit near me I may choose to move to a seat elsewhere. It isn't my business to teach them hygiene or tell them to leave. The cafeteria management may ask them to leave and others are free to complain or stop visiting that cafeteria. Choking down my meal next to them doesn't really teach me some important life skill.

Jaren Watson wrote: It's not an inherently bad idea, but there's a better solution. Don't read the forums. I mean that sincerely and respectfully.

This, respectfully, isn't a better solution.  There are hundreds of threads that offer very valuable information to new climbers and seasoned veterans alike.  I've found everything from great instructions for aid climbing to tricks about racking gear, self rescue, and the list goes on and on.  Also in those threads, there are people that just pour derision on others like it's their fucking job.  With a way to block users who, in YOUR own opinion never (or almost never) offer anything of value, you can still derive useful information without having to worry about filtering through the shitshow.  Barring the code that it would take the developers' efforts to write and implement, which is significant, there really is no downside.  Some people enjoy the troll comments.  Some troll comments and constant presence is a source of entertainment and gives the forum a certain "flair" for some folks.  Others would just assume not sift through the drivel to get to useful information.  I'm sure there's no shortage of people that have that opinion with me and I'm quite alright having my comments blocked by people who don't care to see them.  In fact, I encourage it.  If someone rubs you the wrong way, and everything they say annoys you, but you seem to get along in the forums otherwise, being able to filter out that annoyance would make for a more civil forum environment, I think.  And I absolutely agree that if the trolls start receiving less "food" in the form of people erupting in response to their nonsense that is designed to incite just that, then I really don't see a net negative to implementation of a feature like this.

MojoMonkey wrote: It also isn't a matter of not being able to "handle it" - it is not interesting to me and I don't even want to spend my mental effort or tax my finger scrolling while I'm trying to goof off at work. I hope MP is not aiming to be on par with YouTube commenting?

If I'm at a cafeteria and some dudes with powerful BO sit near me I may choose to move to a seat elsewhere. It isn't my business to teach them hygiene or tell them to leave. The cafeteria management may ask them to leave and others are free to complain or stop visiting that cafeteria. Choking down my meal next to them doesn't really teach me some important life skill.

Yep. I've been here, on and off"  since is was still "Climbing Boulder" and have watched it go from an information driven site to what it is now, which is not as good as it was.

Also, what the fuck is it that someone has 8000+ comments. That is someone that is either spamming or needs to be heard like the little kid that never got enough attention. In person, if someone I disagree with approaches I leave,. Life is short, I don't need to fill it with others antagonizing bullshit.

Also, I don't know how allowing this constant trolling is helping REI sell more shit.

I think I would be happy with just a filter on the existing notification system. Let me add users to a black/white/kill/ignore list. And I only get notified when users other than those on my list make a post.

In fact, I think such a change would water down the effect of trolls and at the same time not waste others time.  Because, when notified of a post, there is more likely to be some meaningful content.

With one other switch setting, the notify behavior could be to only notify me when someone on my list posts.

And, still, everyone sees the same forum pages.

Really fancy would be to gray out the posts of certain users.  :)

Mikey Wally wrote: I want to block tradiban

If you are using the uBlock Origin plugin, you can add filter rules like:

www.mountainproject.com##tr.message-row:has(td.message-avatar:has(a[href*="user/11156"]))
www.mountainproject.com##tr.message-row:has(cite:has-text(Tradiban wrote))

To block posts by and replies quoting Tradiban. The suggestion I linked above would make this easier and more reliable to accomplish.

Metty wrote:
I don't know if that is THE solution but I think some real minimal effort could be done to keep this a bad ass climbers site that awesome people want to be a part of, ...{edited out by admin}

OP has 4 posts, has never mentioned anything about climbing and has such nice things to say about other posters.

Let's put them in charge of MP!

Most of the "trolls" that some are whining about in this thread actually post climbing content. If we have a forum with nothing but lurkers that only occasionally come out to whine, it will lose momentum and die. Content creates content.

Sloppy Second wrote: Most of the "trolls" that some are whining about in this thread actually post climbing content. 

In my notify filter, the actual content would not change for anyone.  So no worries there.

Even speaking as someone who would be blocked by some, and who would not utilize the feature himself — I think it’s a good idea to allow users to filter in this manner.