Grants:IdeaLab/Against toxicity

Against toxicity

Why should people have to suffer the toxic comments, pings and messages of users they do not want to interact with? Just allow people to be in control of who can and cannot post on their talkpages and who can ping them. Let them be able to tune out the users they do not want to interact with.

idea creator• Raystorm

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created on19:12, 29 March 2015 (UTC)

Project idea

What is the problem you're trying to solve?

The pervasive effect of toxic users, bullies and harassers.

What is your solution?

A simple tech fix should do it, this is common enough on many sites. Note that nobody gets blocked from editing or contributing, but we give the freedom to every user about whom they choose to pay attention to in their talkpages and notifications. They are not forced to pay attention to users they'd rather ignore. It's better than a wikibreak.

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It's not clear just what you are suggesting. When I don't want to pay attention to someone I simply don't pay attention to them. I don't need a machine to hide them.Jewels Vern (talk) 00:31, 30 March 2015 (UTC)

A machine? It's simpler than that. What I suggest is having the technical ability to filter users. This is common enough in email and social media. Think spam: you definitely don't want to pay attention to that, but you cannot spend time every day dealing with that either, which is why there are spam filters that remove those messages from your inbox so you don't even notice. Here, the idea is similar: to not have to spend even a second dealing with a toxic user that wants your attention. They would just be automatically unable to ping you or post in your talkpage. It gives back users control about whom they want to interact with and to what they want to pay attention to in a proactive, and not reactive, way. Raystorm (talk) 11:17, 30 March 2015 (UTC)

Endorsements

It sounds as if this might (technically) be able to address notifications regarding toxic users. I'm not sure about talk page messages - perhaps that would require approval for a bot. Even if there were to be consensus for automatically removing certain talk page comments under some circumstances then there'd still remain the possibility of anonymous sockpuppet comments.

In principle, I'm in support because no one should have to tolerate such behaviour. -- Trevj (talk) 21:10, 30 March 2015 (UTC)

Thank you. What I envision is more along the lines of that specific user being unable to even make the comment on the talkpage in the first place. :) Raystorm (talk) 13:22, 31 March 2015 (UTC)

best idea I've seen here Messerjokke79 (talk) 12:12, 31 March 2015 (UTC)

Thanks! Raystorm (talk) 13:22, 31 March 2015 (UTC)

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