"Block, Mute, Move On" on Dreamwidth

[bedes]

I see a lot of folks saying that they "block/mute and move on". Which is a good practice, and this post is not about knocking it. Instead it's asking, how exactly does one do that on Dreamwidth?

Per my understanding, there is no "blocking" on Dreamwidth. There's only banning someone from your account. Banning someone from your account doesn't, however, prevent the user from commenting on your community posts, prevent you from seeing their comments, nor does it even prevent you from seeing their posts from the communities you subscribe to. You can block anonymous comments, and enable selective comment screening, but, per my understanding, that's about it.

Is everyone and their mother just using the Dreamwidth Blocker Userscript, like myself? Or are there some other trick(s) that I don't know of?

(At the risk of going on a tangent: I know that it's a leftover from Livejournal, but the complete inability to preen your feed experience via blocking or muting someone is a serious turn-off for me. I really like Dreamwidth otherwise, but when "block and move on" and "curate your experience" has become, like, some of the core tenants of fandom, it's really annoying. I shouldn't need to download an extension that only sometimes works, just to not see upsetting darkfic on my feed. Because it's my feed! Let me remove the things I don't want to be there! Aarrrgh!!)

A longer post about The Current Events is in the works, and is gonna be published hopefully later today, but I just wanted to ask this question (and complain a little bit, because what are journals for if not that?).

Comments

[beed]

i felt the same way re: "curate your experience" that fandom has adopted, but then i realized it's really not that bad. it feels kind of like learning to enjoy coffee-- you either get the taste, or you never do. XD

i doubt everyone uses a blocking script and they just mean it in the general sense that you can do elsewhere online. i WISH dreamdwidth would implement this, honestly.

[volkameria]

So to the best of my understanding, you can block specific users from commenting on your journal, and block anonymous comments on your journal, but anything external to your journal doesn’t have anything like that. Blocking X user doesn’t mean X user can’t interact with you on Y user’s journal comments.

Honestly I have gotten around this mostly by heavily curating my reading page or straight up just not going online - I’m not going to follow someone who doesn’t use tags/content warnings even if I like their stuff, cuz there’s just some days I don’t wanna interact with certain subjects, you know?

I hope someone else knows more and can provide some more info or solutions!

[bedes]

Same with regards to not subbing to folks who don't use content warnings -- the issue is largely with people I don't subscribe to, posting to communities that I do subscribe to. 〣( ºΔº )〣

[bitflip]

well im not big into the "block and move on" thing (i come from forums where, as far as i know, blocking ppl wasnt A thing? so i never got the habit and now its hard to get me into it i guess? + a hint of maybe irrational ideation about it) i do more of a just "ignore and run away now" but anyway i do not like to mingle much in Outward Fandom so that is maybe easier for me

since communities of any sort i suppose will always be hard to curate (and i easily get overwhelmed when i see more than like, 2 posts), i dont follow any here or elsewhere, or keep them very separate from my daily experience and only peek when i feel brave

[kissed]

Thanks for sharing the userscript! I figured there would have been a solution elsewhere for this but never bothered to look. I always figured DW had other things they were prioritizing, but it feels so daunting when you want to not look at certain things or be subjected to them here and there's no... easy way to. Shouldn't have to download something else to make it easier, it should already be accessible. (and I don't want to mow down DW, as they're doing important work, but still...)

I feel like DW is less combative to lessen the need to block and move on compared to Twitter but doesn't mean it still isn't needed, of course.

Also i.e. communities most of them are basically unmoderated now with inactive accounts so there's no regulation as to posts on there which has always bothered me. I wish there was a system to fix that too...

[haunted_cherries]

THANKS FOR THE SCRIPT b/c I didn't know that was a thing!! xD

I noticed that there wasn't any sort of blocking feature on DW the way I would like, but all that does is make me put in the extra work to ensure I'm seeing everything I wanna see and not seeing the stuff I don't xD Worse come to worse, I know I can always just hit the bricks if I'm uncomfy with what's being posted in a community or just not interact to begin with!

From what I exprienced so far, folks here have been pretty good about staying in their respective lanes and not being nearly as combative as other sites, which is a nice breath of fresh air!

[(Anonymous)]

TBH, i'm far from a fandom old but i think the "block and move on" mainly applies to modern fandom. talking to 35+ older friends who were on LJ informed me that a lot of communities were mostly in their own separate bubble and you just didn't look if you didn't like someone or something. this worked better back then since LJ was a major fandom hub and very active, but now...? i dunno

so sadly i don't think blocking applies to DW and other LJ-clones (even tho i'm not sure how many are active?). i notice like what i'm told of LJ, ppl tend to just be in their own bubbles on their journal and just warn for their content/boundaries, and you just don't interact otherwise. i do wish a way to block ppl entirely was added, as much as i want the LJ format preserved on here, even forums i used pre-tumblr had a blocking feature that hid user's posts or disallowed them from PMing you. DW blocker isn't the same since it's mainly used for anon comms like FFA, and those are closer to twitter-but-anonymous instead of more personal journal spaces :(


- DW lurker nonnie

[bedes]

I totally get that! I do think that blocking not being much of a thing on forums depends on what forums you frequented, though. Most of the ones I was/am on all have a blocking function which see quite regular use, and which I see people regularly talking about using. Others have a blocking function but are on sites with no blocking culture. I think the differences in that sort of thing, from forum to forum and site to site, are interesting

[bedes]

I feel like Dreamwidth could use a similar "community adoption from dead accounts" feature as Pillowfort has. Pillowfort used to have the same problem with dead accounts moderating communities, so I feel like using similar solution could be possible.

[bedes]

Yeah, thankfully I don't feel the need to block someone for, like, being a jerk. I've seen some folks get heated in discussion, but it's all anonymous commenters, which are, of course, easy to disable on your own page.

[bedes]

Woof, I'd nearly forgotten about FFA being on here. Talk about "Twitter but anonymous" -- it even has the same rancid toxicity, lol.

But, yeah, the reason why I think this worked better for LJ is because it was way more active. If someone was posting upsetting fic in one community, you could just leave it and join another, and have it be equally as active. On DW, not so much, sadly.

[haunted_cherries]

yeah AGREED, I usually stray far from discourse to begin with (since folks in modern day fandom are already pretty visceral these days), so having the option to turn it off at least on my page is a GODSEND xD

[bitflip]

I was on FANDOM wiki back when it had forums instead of the weird discussion boards it has now. Im prettttyyy sure it has no individual blocking feature - not super sure how itd work, any way - only that admins and such could block and ban people for infringing rules such as vandalizing others pages, spam or being mean, etc.. since all messages are public this is easier. I really miss old FANDOM wikis !! They used to be GOOD!

Maybe my memory fails me and there may be a blocking feature, but a little search doesnt really say anything of it.

[bedes]

Yo, you’re telling me that FANDOM… used to be GOOD? Holy moly. (God I miss forums…) (Okay I know they’re still around, but God I miss when there were lots and lots of active ones!!)

There isn’t a blocking feature on FANDOM — I cracked open my old account to check. That feels odd to me, just like it feels odd that Dreamwidth doesn’t have one. I’ve seen some discussion boards get HEATED.

[bitflip]

YUP!! It was good! And I'm saying this even if I came to it at the beginning of its "downfall" (when it changed name from Wikia to FANDOM about 2016) – somewhere in 2019 or so was when things really got bad, for me it pretty much began to rot after the forums of the wikis were changed to discussion boards for some reason (Sounds like the same thing, but it looks and works a bit different – and the old forum threads were all deleted, so A LOT of people lost a TREMENDOUS BUNCH of discussions and roleplays) from then on it began to fill with ads and then the weird AI thing etc.

I dont even remember it havibg ads back then like woah.

Anyway ahhh i miss the old days. It also had this thing on people's profiles where you could see what other wikis they were in!! I loved fandom so muchhh ::(