Can the 'Block' feature be redesigned to be more precise and more forgiving?

Um, I love how you pre-cook debates lol. Why are you like this? You can't decide what "the only debate is" because there are system wide ramifications of the multiplicity of user choices.

Hey, why not also keep a list of all the people blocked and see if you can hound those people and get them blocked more! Maybe if you try to drown them, they will float.

It's precisely because Block is a brutal and blunt axe that I don't think its use should be encouraged, nor should it also be melded into track.

Some people like the A-list bloggers in the Valley block people from following them so they won't talk back to them or criticize them, but you can just look their page up and read it any way, so it's all pretty silly. It's a mild hindrance and is merely about flagging the power of those people to obstruct you and lobby to do more to obstruct dissenters.

Your high need to eradicate other people makes me wonder why you come on the Internet.

Not only do I have this question, too - I actually suggested it, too in the very same thread. Though admittedly not as detailed as your wording here, mdy, which makes it a great topic starter. Thanks for taking it "out" of that thread, and for your summary and elaboration.

As to the latter, I have two suggestions for UI improvement:

- First, the top group of checkboxes is confusing. Normally "indented" items will be "true" (regarded) only if the parent item is checked (and would be disabled until the top item is checked) - but worded as they are they are not subordinate but actually contradictory to top item. I'd suggest to leave out the top checkbox altogether and just have the other two: that way you have all the choices you need: check either one, or both.

- Second, the radio group below that (which should of course also be disabled/inactive until at least one checkbox has been checked): I'd reword the last choice as "until I unblock them".

And yes, it should of course be easy to find which people (or bots!) you have blocked. It hadn't occurred to me that it would be difficult (I know exactly who I blocked now) but it certainly shouldn't be. Make it easy to look up your "block list" and the system would be more forgiving.

Appreciate the UI inputs, Marjolein! 8-)

In light of your comments, I think the "Block user forever" option can be safely removed and replaced by "Block until I unblock the user." If I take no further action, then that user will in effect be blocked forever.

Also, I wonder if the second (radio) group shouldn't default to your proposed option -- "Block until I unblock the user" -- since someone may use the block command from sms, im, or a 3rd party app, and therefore not have the same UI / screen available to specify their preference.

It so happens that "until I unblock the user" is the current setting in Twitter, i.e., we can choose to unblock people anytime we want to right now. This option is therefore quite consistent with what everyone is already used to.

( Also, now that I think of it further, there probably needs to be a default for the first group of options as well, for the same reason stated above. )

Uh, you're pretty predictable yourself, using an age-old technique. Keep going with your intuition about "unforgiving," because in fact the entire feature you are clamouring about is "unforgiving" and needlessly draconian.

In fact, I think the method whereby those people who create multiple accounts and use bots on them to constantly respam each account are suspended for misuse of resources makes more sense, as human judgement can go into the ban on a case-by-case basis instead of inciting massive hysterical behaviour with numerous thin-skinned controlling net nannies gleefully playing gotcha with blocks and spreading the word to block other people.

System-wide, it makes for a terrible place.

You don't agree with my premise at all, so don't be misleading and tendentiously say you "agree 100 percent of part of it" (geez, what a ruse!) when I said very clearly:

I'd rather have a system of 1) modes' manual banning of accounts for botting and spamming on an individual basis INSTEAD OF 2) arbitrary and massive track-blocking by individuals driven by vanity and hysteria.

Number one is more rational and informed about the whole system; number 2 is irrational and uninformed about system-wide affects on the public commons.

That's because I'd rather have the human judgement exercised by the creators of Twitter looking at the whole system, and in possession of server facts about usages of automatic botters, and in possession all the block lists to see what's up, and in possession of the most accurate and thorough top-down look at all of Twitter's usages, than have the multitudes using their subjective limited human judgement to block people on whims, low thresholds of irritabilty, hearsay, hysteria, etc.

Big difference.

Thanks for starting this thread. I see that the discussion has already spiraled into a rat hole. I'll check back in a week or two after things settle down.

Nice try there mdoeff, but I don't need to be "heard through Track". I don't spam people. If there's some A-lister I really need to read me, I can still write "@" to them, or write comments on their vanity TV shows, and chances are they will NOT have turned me off *even if they can* precisely because most vanity-feedsters are insanely curious about what is said about them.

I can also use my blog, comment on their blog, or hey, rent a blimp to fly across San Francisco Bay, or whatever.

My point is larger, and while I realize you project on to other people your own thinking patterns, and assume others merely operate thinking of their own self-interest as you do, I am trying to call attention to the larger ramifications of everybody using track-block -- and using it hatefully, aggressively, even fearfully as many in these threads have been advocating. That's all.

Prokofy, thank you very much for so ably demonstrating once and for all that the use of block in track does not at all threaten 'public discourse' and 'open communication.'

As you've so clearly stated:
a) you believe most A-listers are too vain to use block in track, and you have many other means to reach them;
b) people can blog and comment on other people's blogs;
c) people can rent blimps to fly across San Francisco Bay; and
d) there are many other mechanisms available to everyone, which have been beautifully lumped together under the term 'whatever'

You've argued my point far better than I could have.

P.S. I don't believe I've accused you of spamming people. Also, if you would simply take the time to actually read before responding in your signature "ready-fire-aim" style, you'll see that you are responding to my remarks, not mdoeff's.

mdy:

naaah, it does very much threaten public discourse -- but nice try, attempting to use reverse psychology in your doomed forums battle. For every point I've made about how one can do temporary workarounds to get around the obstacle course put on the Internet by neuralgic geeks, here's an extension of the same points:

a) vain A-listers who block people now both from following them so that they won't see them and talk back to them and/or vain A-listers who lobby for block-in-track to keep vanity feed firehouse without "negativity" are eventually going to make sure that people they don't like can't see them at all, anywhere, and make sure eventually that they don't talk, anywhere, as they gain more and more control over blog sites that more and more will be owned by a few companies. This "block even from reading" is already possible to do with Drupal web pages and is already practiced, included by at least one fussy busybody named Nobody in Second Life.

b) Once the A-listers and their neuralgic friends catch the hysterical wave to blackball certain people, they do. They circulate hit-lists. They tell each other with great malicious glee that they are "not feeding trolls" which is of course a ridiculous concept.

c) As for blimps, I guess you have zero sense of humour, but why-are-we-not-surprised.

d) the other "whatevers" are all destined to be unnoticed and amount to "talking on a plastic telephone not linked up to anything". While some narrow segment of controlling nits might find this "just the thing," we ought not to put power in their hands, given the dismantling of other, more free and liberal institutions which they are now undermining.

And what needs to happen is that the insensitive but think-skinned louts that make and run social media and a lot of the other tech stuff out of Silicon Valley need a vast and very loud and long wake-up call from the Rest of the Country and the World. Just think of what happened to Trenton, New Jersey ("Trenton Makes The World Takes").

So your argumentation is shown as the specious thing it is.

The fact is, news aggregators and influencers and political wannabees like Arrington want to control the Internet. They think "somewhere out there" are places "for people like that" who are entitled to their "free speech" "somewhere". That's not a public discourse, however. It's not the public commons. It is not the place where the First Amendment will live and move and have its being. I don't expect you to understand this.

In light of your explanation above, how do you expect me to believe that your objection to Block in Track has nothing to do with protecting your own ability to be heard?

Only a fool or a liar will claim to be unconcerned if they *truly* believe their voice can be silenced so completely by the very people they want to reach and influence.

If, on the other hand, you are confident in your continued ability to circumvent their attempts to block you, then your concern for 'public discourse' and 'open communication' is unfounded.

Admit it, prokofy... you don't strike me as the type who will expend this much time and energy crusading for the 'common good' purely out of your concern for the 'irrational, uninformed, hysterical, block-happy' masses. You're in this forum to protect your own ability to be heard through Track.

Obviously, I don't expect you to admit this. But if you do, then we will have made progress in this discussion.

Back to the topic of Block -- I just started another thread

Can we have an "Unblock All" command?

Thanks for creating this thread. As mentioned, I'd love to have the option to choose if you want it to obey the block list or not when using tracking.

Mdy,

Um, why do you think that somehow my objection to Block in Track doesn't have "anything" to do with my own desire to be heard -- duh? Your surly suspicions and curled lip of distaste are obvious, but you're at the wrong address with all of this. Of course I desire to be heard, just like anyone, and I don't play any silly geeky game of fake altruism like you all do. It's a totally legitimate desire to be heard. What, you would like being muffled and suppressed?!

I *do* have a larger interest than just my own little voice on Twitter, however: I think that any system needs feedback, and any country needs criticism and the ability both to criticize and petition leaders. And this matters, and it matters getting it right at the early stages of social media that will aspire to supplant what we have in the form of institutions and old media now.

Re: "Only a fool or a liar will claim to be unconcerned if they *truly* believe their voice can be silenced so completely by the very people they want to reach and influence."

So, you're assuming I'm a liar and fool. Well, whatever. I don't pretend to be altruistic and unconcerned about being heard, that's silly. I've never said any such thing. I'm also concerned about other people being heard, too, which is more than I can say for you and others in these threads, who want only one, selfish thing: tools to block the hell out of people you hate and ideas you dislike -- forever.

As for my "confidence," oh, I think we can give this a really big fight. But in fact it's a slender reed. For example, I could always criticize somebody on my blog, which is owned by Six Apart. But what if one of these A-listers whose knickers are in a twist because I talked back to them on Twitter goes and parties or lunches it up with the Six Apart people, and says, "Get rid of Prokofy. Just find a pretext." What protection would I have from that happening? I would have none. Because they have the same silly and overbroad TOS as anybody, allowing for hugely discretionary and arbitrary interpretation of what might be "abuse". Basically, any of these services can expel you "for any reason or no reason" and there really isn't a place for the First Amendment to play out, unless you plan to type samizdat.

One minute, it could seem like legions of people critical of a Scoble or an Arrington could be blabbing away on their Live Journals or Word Presses and then WHOOPS those track-blocking types could be putting them on master shit lists shared around the tech gangs in Silicon Valley and likeminded circuits and then they're toast. And we know they do this already when they need to. THey are very vulnerable to peer pressure. For example, Scoble explained on FriendFeed that he blocked me because "his readers pointed out to him" that he should. I've seen such sycophantic activity on Twitter/FF that you wouldn't believe. If Scoble nods and says something positive to me, suddenly a wave of his little fanboyz come to pat me on the head and follow me. If he disses me and decides to throw a fit over something I've criticized him about, his little grouplets also unfollow me or tsk-tsk on FF. It's hilarious to watch. Don't any of these *men* have minds of their own?!

Uh, I'm not going to "admit" something that isn't true, dearie. I'm definitely crusading for the common good. People who crusade for the common good don't exempt themselves from this common good, duh. It's good for all of us -- and you, too -- if Twitter is kept as an open and free platform that doesn't acquire the horrid, nasty, vicious and hateful climate rejecting newcomers, non-techs, dissenters, etc. that one finds in so many settings whether Terra Nova or Tech Crunch.

It might be that as more and more people get blocked by this bunch, they in turn will network and become their own center of power, too. The Internet seems to have always functioned that way. But lately, it has become possible to blanket more and more applications and services with bans and filters, and that's very much of concern. It's like making people un-persons.

Gosh, I love that tech-speak, Marjolein with the ! and the = -- does that make you feel in control?

Do you realize that what you are writing there has been repeated over and over, like a machine, by people just like you, on forums everywhere? that merely repeating it with the kind of hectoring tone that you bring doesn't make it somehow more "right"? It's just a view of yours and your class -- but it isn't *nessarily* the narrative of the future and it's merely *how you wish it to be* but not how it *may* be.

You're still failing to grasp the larger point. Gosh, no, duh, nobody can force other people to listen just because they speak. Do you think you have imparted the wisdom of the ages by constating that obvious one? Is your assumption always and everywhere that the target of your homilies is stupid and unwilling to grasp the obvious something you are subjected to a lot in your field?

It's a truism, but one that only goes so far in a normal, democratic society where in fact listening to people, especially dissenters, especially groups in the society with grievances, is in fact an activity that the society values. And scientists in fact, if they are true to their values, don't create systems without feedback. They don't say "Let's all close our ears to everything that is said because after all, we're not required to listen just because something speaks." Most people of conscience and intelligence don't want a society that would create isolated, deliberately deafened individuals or worse, isolated, deliberately deafened circles of people in power.

Your persistence in seeing this as some kind of little blog management problem is hobbling you from seeing the ramifications of your recipes.

In fact, contrary to your brutal formula that imagines a privileged elite filtering out people they hate and always getting away with it with malicious glee, *listening* is what good journalists and editors do *in the public interest*, to serve *the public's right to know*. It's what good representative politicians do in a democracy.

Increasingly, it's people like you who are undermining those concepts but not implementing anything that is a valid replacement, and they are eroded by the changes in the old mainstream media as well. So more and more stress *is* indeed placed on new media to provide some of these functions.

This concept of "Server = law" -- geez lol. No, that's old-fashioned thinking, Marjolein, and increasingly, you will be finding these TOS declared unconscionable by courts of law.

As for the old tekkie "forced migration policy" -- i.e. if you don't like it leave, go run your own server, blah blah blah, the answer is: no. When you create services on servers that are as large and unique as Twitter, you don't just tell people you don't like to leave. And the owners/coders aren't doing that. Looks to me that rather than make the socialist little exclusive club, they are creating something far more open that I think even they themselves don't understand the consequences of.

Prokofy,

I know there's a good chance that you don't give a flying fig about my opinion, but I wanted to say that I appreciate how well thought out and articulated your last two responses to me have been. I mean this sincerely.

Although I usually find it painful to read your replies (hehe), I *do* take the time to read them and think about them, and I've learned a lot from our ongoing discussion.

Side note: I do view our exchanges as a discussion, and not a 'forum battle,' doomed or otherwise. ;-)

* * *

As to this thread in particular -- it was precisely because I recognize that Block (not just in track, but Block as it currently exists in Twitter) can be misused that I created this thread and hoped Twitter would:
a. introduce a way to have blocks 'expire'
b. allow users to opt out of applying blocks in track

It was never my intent to 'pre-cook the debate,' or to 'decide what the only debate is' as you suggested in your first response to this thread. As far as I was concerned, the debate as to whether or not Track should recognize Blocks was already being discussed in a different thread, where someone from Twitter was present and in a position to speak on behalf of the company.

It was also for this reason (i.e., I felt that the debate was already being covered elsewhere) that I made a point of linking to the aforementioned thread when I started this one -- so that people reading this thread can see why my question was premised on the assumption that Block would be implemented in Track, and readers could join the debate in the other thread if they so desired, where someone from Twitter would be sure to hear what they had to say.

There's a good chance that the above explanation won't matter to you. But, I wanted to take this opportunity to explain why the question is phrased the way it is.

* * * *

Anyway, thanks to our many exchanges, I realized for the first time that there was no easy way to simply 'Unblock All'... so I asked for that feature.

Prior to our discussion, it had also never bothered me that there is no easy way to review the list of people that I've blocked. Frankly, I never felt the need to see my own Block list because I hardly ever use Block myself. Now, however, it does bother me that Twitter users cannot see their Block lists, because this means we won't have an easy way to look at those profiles again and consider unblocking people.

And while I understand how my request to see a list of the people that I've blocked can be interpreted as a desire on my part to publish my list and urge other people to block the same individuals, I hope you can see from my explanation above that this was not my intent.

* * * *

Anyway, at the risk of once again incurring your displeasure, I wish to suggest for your consideration the idea that you are less likely to win people over when you paint everyone with such a broad, negative brush.

This statement, for example: -- "you and others in these threads, who want only one, selfish thing: tools to block the hell out of people you hate and ideas you dislike -- forever." -- is a statement where I feel that "surly suspicions and curled lip of distaste are obvious."

I hope you will consider the possibility that when your replies are laced with statements such as the one above, you greatly diminish the chances that your core message (i.e., the bigger picture) is properly received.

Simply put, if your intent is to convince people, it doesn't help to antagonize them. Please, please consider adopting a less combative stance in your replies if your intent is to persuade.

To dissent doesn't necessarily mean to attack. That old saying about honey and vinegar comes to mind.

* * * *

For whatever it's worth, I liked this paragraph very much and wanted to acknowledge it.

"It's a truism, but one that only goes so far in a normal, democratic society where in fact listening to people, especially dissenters, especially groups in the society with grievances, is in fact an activity that the society values. And scientists in fact, if they are true to their values, don't create systems without feedback. They don't say "Let's all close our ears to everything that is said because after all, we're not required to listen just because something speaks." Most people of conscience and intelligence don't want a society that would create isolated, deliberately deafened individuals or worse, isolated, deliberately deafened circles of people in power."

* * * *

As to whether or not Twitter should be the final arbiter of who should or should not be blocked or suspended, I fully acknowledge the validity of your statement, which I quote here for reference:

"I'd rather have the human judgement [sic] exercised by the creators of Twitter looking at the whole system, and in possession of server facts about usages of automatic botters, and in possession all the block lists to see what's up, and in possession of the most accurate and thorough top-down look at all of Twitter's usages"

I agree with the merits of the argument. However, I have doubts as to whether or not it would be feasible for Twitter to perform this function as the service continues to grow. If Twitter (which last I heard had around 1 million users) were to grow to the scale of Myspace or Facebook, they'd need a small army of people just to perform the task you describe. Worse, they may end up outsourcing the function to a group that does not have a proper appreciation for the nuances that you highlight.

Obviously, it is up to Twitter to decide what role they will perform. However, in light of the statements they've made in the other thread, I am inclined to believe that they will remain hands off.

Mdy,

Just briefly for now:

1) Vinegar is a good disinfectant; I don't fall for flattering and cajoling and switching from insult to praise. No sale.

2) I will not be changing anything about what I think or the way I express it. I will not be conforming to any tribalist geek-inspired norms that suppress independence of thought and expression, I will not be submitting to any grooming and culling of my speech by your or your posse, and I will not be conceding any norms of politeness or proprietary dictated by you or those like you -- and you are indeed a type and a lobby of your own, and your "solutions" are indeed obstacles to a free Internet.

3) You wish to block people you don't like because you don't like their views or their manner of expression. "Unfollow" exists for that, but it's never enough -- you wish to scrub further. That's wrong. Sure, that's your right. But you need to hear in the strongest, most strenuous terms how that harms the public debate, and I'm here to do that. And your blocking behaviour can be imitated, spread virally, and used to completely cripple democracy and put social media into the hands of only powerful and biased influencers, so it needs to be vigorously and robustly opposed now, while it still can be.

4) Spam isn't anywhere near the problem you claim, and you know that your blocks aren't only about spam, anyway, and proof of that is in your desire to have a block list that you can "review' now and then to see if you now can "clear" people that you might be "willing to tolerate again". That's sick, and you need to be told that; it's a culture and a mindset common to tekkie early adapters and Web 1.0 and 2.0 engineers -- and it needs to go, and the sooner it goes, the better. I'm here to help that happen.