'Hide' Function for all content types: forums, threads, resources, media, etc

Alpha1

Well-known member
Reddit has a nifty 'Hide' feature. Facebook has something similar. Once you click it the thread, post or other content immediately no longer shows. This allows users to keep browsing when they encounter content that they find objectionable.

This function has multiple benefits. Not only is it useful to readers, but its also useful to admins/moderators: if something is found objectionable by multiple members then most likely there is a problem there.

It would be nice to have a setting to send content to moderation if more than X members have hidden it. (threads, posts, resources, media, etc. Obviously not forums)

And yes I know: people SHOULD just report. But many people dont want to take the effort or feel bad about reporting someone. Having a hide button is quick, simple and effective.
 
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This allows users to keep browsing when they encounter content that they find objectionable.

Or just something they’re not interested in.

I’d happily hide a lot of busy threads I have no interest in on busy forums, for example certain sporting or political threads, or ‘what are you listening to now’ etc.

The types of threads I may know I never want to look at, but are active and keep appearing in the new posts section
 
I just joined a new XF forum, which I'm quite enjoying, except there's a fair few completely unrelated political topics and it's really frustrating having to view all the political garbage in the what's new feed every time I visit. It's very off putting and puts a dampener on the 95% of other good content and info on the site and makes me less inclined to visit. Really wish the ability to hide specific threads was in the core.
 
I just joined a new XF forum, which I'm quite enjoying, except there's a fair few completely unrelated political topics and it's really frustrating having to view all the political garbage in the what's new feed every time I visit. It's very off putting and puts a dampener on the 95% of other good content and info on the site and makes me less inclined to visit. Really wish the ability to hide specific threads was in the core.
I also consider this to be a fundamentally important addition. (y)
 
The inability to block individual threads that consistently show up in 'What's New' feeds is desperately needed.

There's some forums I visit that have a wealth of info, but there's some god awful incredibly active threads that are nearly always presented to me in the what's new feed and it makes me sick.

The exact same forum I mentioned in my post 2 years ago I recently visited again and even though I'm contributing and posting content and getting really valuable replies, the entire site feels tainted to me and makes me feel sick and not want to post because of a few highly divisive and political threads that I'm constantly confronted with in my feed. I'm sick of it. All the other major social media platforms have had the ability to block individual threads for years.

The lack of features like this is definitely detrimental to the success of smaller independent communities, especially active ones.

It doesn't matter if it's politics, religion, a brand, any topic that for whatever reason you don't want to deal with. To be bombarded with that every time you hopefully look for exciting new content on a site you otherwise like, it destroys the enjoyment and desire to engage.
 
Reddit has a nifty 'Hide' feature. Facebook has something similar. Once you click it the thread, post or other content immediately no longer shows. This allows users to keep browsing when they encounter content that they find objectionable.

This function has multiple benefits. Not only is it useful to readers, but its also useful to admins/moderators: if something is found objectionable by multiple members then most likely there is a problem there.

It would be nice to have a setting to send content to moderation if more than X members have hidden it. (threads, posts, resources, media, etc. Obviously not forums)

And yes I know: people SHOULD just report. But many people dont want to take the effort or feel bad about reporting someone. Having a hide button is quick, simple and effective.
Frankly I think this 'Hide' concept is a pretty decent idea really. Actually seems like a far better solution than the mediocre & very easily weaponizable-(*by unscrupulous & often exceedingly hypocritical members using the)-'Ignore' bollocks.

Seems more reasonable to simply enable the ability for thin skinned members to hit a 'Hide' option on a per post, &/or per thread basis.

However I question whether it would serve beneficial to incorporate such a 'Hide' option with automated mod listing.
At least, I would anticipate that it wouldn't be prudent to reveal an auto-mod listing aspect publicly, simply due that common feralized members–& shameless mobs thereof would almost certainly hijack and weaponize it for their own purposes...as is already often the case with 'Ignore' & 'Report'.

Furthermore, which is why it is important to highlight the potentially erroneous/biased interpretation for:

"...if something is found objectionable by multiple members then most likely there is a problem there."

Which is a perfectly logical conclusion of course.
Yet this would likely create issues when combined with the idea for incorporating the 'Hide' concept with auto-modding due to the fact we first require having had identified exactly what the root cause of the problem is.

For example: merely that multiple members may appear as if to independently object to certain content/or certain members content, does not prove the 'Hidden' content to definitively be objectionable.

Whether it is or isn't objectionable as arbitrarily defined by respective fora administration and moderation staff, is of course at their sole–(often duplicitously hypocritical)–discretion.

Yet the content itself may not be the root cause of the apparent problem at all.

It may simply be that those members using the 'Hide' option are themselves problematic, as has been so the case with the 'Ignore' & 'Report' options.
Dysfunctional individuals tend to be exceptionally skillful at indirectly creating problems specifically so to appear as though caused by anyone other than themselves–they also often automatically participate engaging such covertly aggressive offending with other dysfunctional individuals merely for transient self-gratification which dysfunctional individuals gain from abusing others.

Now I can appreciate that matters such as these may possibly seem unimportant or wholly irrelevant for some, however the fact is that administrative duties also includes the inescapable requisite assumption of all community social responsibilities, legally, ethically and most crucially morally. Executing administrative duties whilst failing to account for–& proactively addressing–one's own personal–as well as each individual community member's–potentials for psychological dysfunction, amounts to executing administrative duties in dereliction.


In essense:

Where 10 members object to 1 member's content does not preclude the 1 member's innocence.

As to definitively presume that the 1 member must be at fault while the 10 members objections must be justified, merely due to numerical superiority of the 10 ~vs~ the 1, would infact be a logical error.

It may be that the 10 members are simply dysfunctional a$$holes ganging up on the 1 member.
 
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