Yes. There are several users here now who are bad faith actors. It would be great to be able to tag them. That way I wouldn’t try to engage in conversation just to become frustrated by their bad faith arguments and insults before recognizing their names. I don’t want to block them because I want to be able to make good faith responses to their nonsense but I want to know that they’re trolls so I don’t get involved in a discussion that isn’t going to go anywhere.
I feel that the ability to tag users is the only thing that Lemmy is missing for me. Maybe all of the actions of these bad actors will inspire the creation of a tagging system.
Check out my original comment for an update. Sync goes Lemmy does what I was looking for.
Thanks, I’ve been using Lift Off but if Sync allows you to tag users, I’ll have to give it a try.
I would be happy to have it in my client. If I could have a personal list of tagged users so that their names showed up in a different color I wouldn’t accidentally get drawn into a conversation with someone who is just using childish, circular arguments and utter nonsense in a bad faith attempt to derail the conversation. I could just ignore them and continue the discussion with other users but I could also warn others who were engaging with them and becoming frustrated that they are bad actors and that they are wasting their breath.
Blocking users is a sign of weakness.
The blocking system on Reddit was horribly broken. Blocking a user on Reddit effectively takes them out of the conversation. They can’t reply to any comment by the person who blocked them or under a comment by the person who blocked them. A bad faith actor can involve themselves in the conversation then block the OC preventing them from carrying on the conversation about their own comment. A small group of bad actors could move together to block anyone who didn’t agree with them. By blocking up to 100 users each they could shut down disagreement. A small group could shut down a sub until the mods banned them. Tactical blocking was a thing.
On Lemmy, when you block someone you take yourself out of the conversation. The blocked user can continue to discuss the topic at hand below a comment from a blocking user. Tactical blocking doesn’t work. All it does is protect the blocking user from being exposed to contradictory comments or ideas.
So, no, I’m not going to simply block anyone who is a bad actor. My beliefs aren’t that delicate. My ideas aren’t that fragile. I’m not that weak.
What I would like to be able to do it to tag users who I have discovered are bad faith actors so that I don’t get drawn into a pedantic, or fallacious conversation with someone who is just trying to distract of derail the conversation. Having a bad actor block me is a gift. I can still respond to and discuss their comments but they can’t see my response. I can warn others that they are bad faith actors. I’m totally cool with that. In fact, a couple of people have loudly announced that they’re blocking me and I’ve celebrated.
If you’re being harassed or threatened, or if someone is hurling racist or other hate at you you can still contact the instance admin and have them banned but you can’t tactically block a user and you can’t shut down the conversation in a community.
Weak? It protects your time. Although maybe you have hours to post online with idiots. Most people don’t.
Thanks for doing that. I have a similar approach.
I really want federated social media to work, and the extremist propaganda is killing it.
Yup. It seems like the bad actors have moved from Hexbear to Lemm.ee. I see a lot of tankie nonsense coming from there now. It would be great to be able to set a flag on a user who you often agree with and on ones you have identified as christofascists, vegan extremists, or any other bad faith actor, really. Maybe we could even color code them.
Yeah we really need a way to identify ex-cops and other bad faith scum like them.
