No smoke without fire. 
You’re definitely not alone, I even notice some being unnecessarily rude to you and they’ll get the button when it’s justified.
It’s a good deterrent.
:laughing: Well actually yes, you are in the presence of the Google wizardry, which usually targets relevant ads, but occasionally gets them dead wrong. Sorry about that, those are ads that Google personalizes for you, and no two people get the exact same set of Google ads, and I don’t have any real control over what they serve up for you. With that being said, if you continue to see a really annoying or really inappropriate Google ad on this site please let me know and I can block that advertiser. The emphasis being on “really”, because I’d prefer not to be deluged with more administrative tasks.
Sorry that’s not possible at the moment. In retrospect I guess this is a fairly important feature for this system to work better. I’ll see what I can do.
I wonder if TK’s ‘killfile’ could also be implemented as a button.
Because I think there’s, for most of us, some sort of comment that (while not ‘rude’) hits a hot button.
And some folks do enjoy banging on their favorite buttons to see who gets upset, vs. who applauds.
“… this flashlight fries the craven illiberal hearts of lotus eaters……
That sort of thing. It means nothing but it incorporates a few buttons that might touch tender spots in someone who sees a buzzword.
Those are the sorts of posts where a “don’t want to see this ever again” button would be most helpful.
Yeah, I can edit the CSS in TK’s “after dark” to enable the feature now. I do. Works great.
But how many among us who see something that pisses us off react by immediately wanting to go copy and paste a bit of code so we don’t have to get pissed off?
Backing away is, you know, the right thing to do. It’s also the difficult thing to do.
I talk too much, and here I go again…
First, I hope this doesn’t make a lot of extra work for you as admin, people playing with something that is meant very seriously.
Second, I already see people playing with the button, raking up big numbers like it’s a matter of pride, when in fact, rule number one clearly states that rude behavior will get your membership revoked. So maybe I’m just thinking too literally but I saw the Rude! button as a 1-10 scale of how close you are to getting banned. Going to 12 or 20 or 50 just seems like someone asking to no longer be a member on BLF, according to Rule #1.
And lastly, how do you establish this difference, between playful running up of the numbers only to watch them fall over ensuing days versus real actual rude comments made that should have someone ejected from the forum? If the “ticks” count down daily, then it’s easy for anyone to intentionally be rude and get away with it on a regular basis.
I was a member of Photography on the Net (POTN) for years, they used to use this type of system and it became so problematic they did away with it.
I have seen members here blatantly break rules, in ways that should have banned them according to the rules, and yet they are still here. Thankfully, TK gave some options and I am using those options where BLF protocol has failed.
Seems like this is going to be more work for you SB as opposed to less work. It would appear that there are going to multiple cases of members being ostracized for their dissenting views in any given thread. Hence, you will likely have to go back and analyze the true nature of the individuals “rude” total as opposed to simply banning them. My dissenting opinion here alone would likely get high “rude” totals in a GB setting for example, as there always seems to be two opposing factions in each GB.
I understand that users are playing with the button right now, because it’s new. Once I make sure the bugs are worked out of the system I’ll tell users to only use it seriously, and I’ll probably eliminate the ability to “rude” one’s own posts.
Sometimes the user has actually been banned, I just don’t make a public announcement so as to not give more glory to users that are trying to get attention by being rude. And sometimes I simply don’t notice rude behavior and/or major violations of the rules. So I would appreciate a PM in cases where you feel somebody is showing a pattern of major rudeness.
We’ll see how it works. Of course everybody has a right to express their opinions and even dissenting views, which is the whole purpose of a forum. But the problem is that a few people are being extremely rude while expressing their disagreement. I do want to reiterate yet again that the Rude! button is not meant for disagreeing with an opinion, but rather for flagging posts that are inappropriate.
I have my own opinions as to what constitutes rudeness, but if a significant number of people agree with me by marking a given post as Rude!, and if the poster is a repeat offender, I will ban them, just as I’ve always done. I’ve always had to look into scattered cases of trolling and extreme rudeness, so nothing changes there for me. Now I just have more opinions to take into account when making the decision, and not all of them necessarily have to flood my PM inbox with complaints about an individual.
I love this forum very nice and kind people here :+1:
Judgement was called for in the past and is still called for. The rude button is merely a tool to help people become more aware of how they are perceived by others including those who have declined to respond to the rude posts in the past. Hopefully with the benefit of reducing rude responses by those who do respond. There have been a number of insults tossed off in a variety of threads where the poster took for granted it was ok to do so and though they were not trolling were most definitely rude. “Aggression unchallenged is aggression unleashed” Phaedrus(15BC-50AD) so thank you SB for providing an acceptable form of challenge. This shouldn’t be viewed as some license to go on witch hunts though. Undoubtedly, some will take offense at having their behavior challenged viewing it as a challenge to their freedom as it’s a rare bird that can accept criticism and take it to heart with humility. Most seem to snooze after a wake up call.
I agree with Will34.
I’ve seen a lot of rudeness towards people selling things, especially and ironically Chinese vendors, when someone doesn’t like the prices they see. I’d say it’s a defining characteristic of BLF. Saw a vendor thread recently where the 1st reply was dogging on the price, which was no surprise at all to me.
^ This is the idea.
I would also add that we’ve seen a lot of cases where normally friendly users speak up when a fight breaks out to defend who they perceive to be the “innocent victim” or to reprimand rude users. But by doing so, they often get dragged into the fight, their post bumps the thread up in the recent posts, and if there is a malicious poster there (s)he will use that as additional fodder to inflame the argument even more. But now the Rude! button is available so that those who just sincerely want to help don’t feel tempted to intervene in an argument.
I have a feeling that the same people that the rude button was created to deal with are going to be the same people who use it the most.
Glad you brought up this important issue. It’s important to note that the BLF Rules against rudeness and fighting do not have any conditions whatsoever relating to country of origin or seller/customer status. Please remember that non-spam posts by foreign sellers should be treated with the same courtesy that any other BLF member deserves. There is a real person sitting behind the keyboard that made that post, and they have feelings too, whether they understand English well or not. Of course you are welcome to try to ask for a better deal or haggle on the price. But if you don’t like the seller or you’re not interested in the deal, just step away. If it’s a terrible deal or otherwise unwanted (but not spammy) vendor, they will naturally sink into the background if users simply don’t respond. Responding with personal insults to poor marketing will only bump up the thread and give them more attention.
Sometimes you don’t know till you try, if this works out then great, if not then it can be removed or tweaked.
I prefer to keep it simple for now. The Rude! counter automatically ticks back down, and a single user clicking multiple posts won’t get them removed. So even an attack like that wouldn’t have any permanent effect. Of course I will be carefully watching for abuse against the system, and abusers will be punished by permanent banning depending on how they respond to my PMs.
It’s certainly an interesting topic. It will be interesting to see what others deem constitutes rudeness. There will be debate which will also present samples of some of the different types. I hope this works, getting people to excercise control isn’t easy and most don’t even realize that habits of speach can carry built in insults.
I deleted my Grammar Nazi post , can .
Didn’t want to be Rude!
Edit : :innocent: