This is complicated. I was also banned be someone, even wrote a bug report “hey, I can’t reply to this person, pls fix the bug” and was explained that I was actually banned by that person… it kinda hurt for a moment, but then I shrugged and mostly forgot about it.
I think there are both possible good and bad consequences.
It will be bad if some people start systematically banning e.g. those who call out their bullshit. Because that is a large part of the value of this website: people giving reasonable feedback. If the article is bullshit, someone will likely mention in in the comments. If the comment is bullshit, if it visible enough, someone will likely reply. This mechanism could be broken if some people start banning those who provide this feedback.
On the other hand, some people really are super annoying. But should they be banned from the website? Seems too harsh. But if they become obsessed with some selected targets, those targets may decide to leave, which is also bad. Giving the target the possibility to ban the annoying person seems like a win/win solution.
...no conclusion here.
Maybe allow every user to only ban three people? (If you ban the fourth one, the first one is automatically unbanned.) This is based on assumption that really annoying people are rare and don’t have multiple accounts. So you can deflect the one that annoys you most, without being able to build an echo chamber.
Maybe figure out another way to signal “I consider your behavior annoying” without a ban?
Maybe reduce the meaning of the ban from “you can’t reply to this person at all” to “you can only post one reply per article”? So you can state your objections, but you can’t stay there and keep interacting with the author. When you are writing the reply, you are notified that this is the only one you get under this article.
Maybe reduce the meaning of the ban from “you can’t reply to this person at all” to “you can only post one reply per article”? So you can state your objections, but you can’t stay there and keep interacting with the author. When you are writing the reply, you are notified that this is the only one you get under this article.
could be good, if combined with up to 3 total bans
This is complicated. I was also banned be someone, even wrote a bug report “hey, I can’t reply to this person, pls fix the bug” and was explained that I was actually banned by that person… it kinda hurt for a moment, but then I shrugged and mostly forgot about it.
I think there are both possible good and bad consequences.
It will be bad if some people start systematically banning e.g. those who call out their bullshit. Because that is a large part of the value of this website: people giving reasonable feedback. If the article is bullshit, someone will likely mention in in the comments. If the comment is bullshit, if it visible enough, someone will likely reply. This mechanism could be broken if some people start banning those who provide this feedback.
On the other hand, some people really are super annoying. But should they be banned from the website? Seems too harsh. But if they become obsessed with some selected targets, those targets may decide to leave, which is also bad. Giving the target the possibility to ban the annoying person seems like a win/win solution.
...no conclusion here.
Maybe allow every user to only ban three people? (If you ban the fourth one, the first one is automatically unbanned.) This is based on assumption that really annoying people are rare and don’t have multiple accounts. So you can deflect the one that annoys you most, without being able to build an echo chamber.
Maybe figure out another way to signal “I consider your behavior annoying” without a ban?
Maybe reduce the meaning of the ban from “you can’t reply to this person at all” to “you can only post one reply per article”? So you can state your objections, but you can’t stay there and keep interacting with the author. When you are writing the reply, you are notified that this is the only one you get under this article.
could be good, if combined with up to 3 total bans