Ignore function

[whole diary]

[Richard Fairhurst]

Would it be possible to have an 'ignore' button on the forum, so that each user can choose not to read posts by particular authors? We have one on our humble forum for the Charlbury Website and it seems to work well.

This looks like it might do the job.

[JayMac]

Hmm, I can chose not to read posts from particular authors by er, not reading them.

[TerminalJunkie]

You can do it in Firefox with this Greasemonkey script:

Code:

// ==UserScript==
// @name           smf (simple machines forum) - ignore list
// @namespace      http://www.firstgreatwestern.info/coffeeshop/index.php
// @include        http://www.firstgreatwestern.info/coffeeshop/*
// @version        0.1
// @author         reeloo
// ==/UserScript==

//to make this script working you have to edit "Include Pages" in Greasemonkey settings according to your forum
//ie.: "http://www.simplemachines.org/community/index.php?..." transform to "http://www.simplemachines.org/community/*"

//edit 'smf_url' line according to your forum
//it has to start with "http://" and end with "index.php"
var smf_url = 'http://www.firstgreatwestern.info/coffeeshop/index.php';

var banned = new Array();
//to ignore user with id 1, 2 a 3 uncomment the following lines, evtl. add more lines in format "banned.push(uid);"
banned.push(31);   //membername1
banned.push(84);   //membername2
banned.push(95);   //membername3
banned.push(348);  //membername4
for (var i = 0; i < banned.length; i++){
	var uid = banned[i];
	var url = 'http://www.firstgreatwestern.info/coffeeshop/index.php?action=profile;u=' + uid;
	var expression = '//tr[td/table/tbody/tr/td/table/tbody/tr/td/b/a[@href = "' + url + '"]]';
	
	var nodes = document.evaluate(expression, document, null, XPathResult.ORDERED_NODE_SNAPSHOT_TYPE, null);

	for (var j = 0; j < nodes.snapshotLength; j++) {
		var node = nodes.snapshotItem(j);
		node.style.display = 'none';
	}
}

_{Edited to redact usernames in an attempt to maintain the peace} 

[6 OF 2 redundant adjunct of unimatrix 01]

oh cheers haha

[6 OF 2 redundant adjunct of unimatrix 01]

removed as per mods

[grahame]

Richard, in answer to your original question, I am inclined not to add that "mod" to the board.  Feedback from a couple of the moderators rather confirms my personal view that you can choose to read what you want, and other answers in this thread have helped convince me that it's really not a good idea to block people.  Not only can it cause offence if revealled, but it can also mean that threads would appear damaged where the people you have banned are posting.  Perhaps it's useful for the Charlbury Village Idiot, but our team here keeps the spam and flack down pretty well.

There's another reason against too.  It comes down to time that's available, and the keeping of the forum running.   In stable state, it's fine - but something of a labour of love too (like certain others  who put in huge time to rail sites). But there has to be a limit, and I don't want to go down routes which would probably work but may not, leaving me with issues that I was frantically trying to resolve while doing my day job.

[6 OF 2 redundant adjunct of unimatrix 01]

End of the day if anything offensive is posted its removed, we are all human we will never all agree on things, however it would be nice if this scenario didn't come up......

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fqs9DYisSsg


as for what happened previously in the thread, is my poor spelling and grammar really that difficult to deal with 

[Phil]

Sorry, who was it posted that last comment on this thread?   

[Richard Fairhurst]

Grahame - entirely your decision, of course, and thank you for considering it.

I would say that the Coffee Shop is a terrific forum and one of the best (and most civil) I've encountered, but arguably it has more village idiots than the Charlbury one!

Like all railway web forums, it has the... challenge of some very enthusiastic young posters. Their joie de vivre and optimism that all things can be fixed with More Super Fast Trains To Where I Live is commendable but, well, can get a little wearing at times for the old cynics amongst us. (uk.railway is about the only place that doesn't suffer from this, largely because no-one under the age of 35 has heard of Usenet ).

An 'ignore' function allows those who don't want to read this to do so, while not placing any additional burden on the mods to rule one way or another. Everyone wins. (I'm actually slightly surprised that SMF^▸ (Simple Machines Forum - The software we use on this site) doesn't offer it as a standard function - much forum software does.)

As I mentioned in a PM to bignosemac, the Coffee Shop has lost one of its most knowledgeable and helpful contributors in exactly these circumstances (I won't name names in public, but given that I principally read the Cotswold Line board, you may know what I'm talking about). TerminalJunkie's clever Greasemonkey script demonstrates that others find it an issue, too. Absolutely your choice as to what you do - it is, after all, your website - but I do think it would be a worthwhile improvement.

[6 OF 2 redundant adjunct of unimatrix 01]

I wish I could ignore everyone in my life that tells me something that I don't want to hear

[tramway]

Thank you RW for your advice never to visit the Charlbury web site.