Blocking and Sniping

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Another person sent a message to me and then immediately blocked me to prevent a reply.

My suggestion is that any messages send less than some time t before a block, then the message is discarded or (better) goes into limbo, and the sender is advised of this. Perhaps the intended recipient might be advised simply that a message had been made unreadable as part of a policy to prevent sniping.
 
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I considered the idea of not allowing a block for an interval t after a private message had been sent. But a person might have some really sound reason for wanting an immediate block. Unless he or she can delete a private message that he or she sent, to allow a block, I think that my proposal above is better. But I'm not adamant about that claim.
 
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Throwing out my own thoughts...

I'm going to advise that a sender of a message to a blocked user should allow the message to be sent. However, both the sender and receiver are not to know any better. The sender should be made to assume it was sent, but the blocker should know nothing.

"Out of sight, out of mind" is not the greatest solution to everything, but a block is supposed to be full stop for what is being blocked. The user being blocked should not be able to work around a block for whatever reason.

This is to help both parties involved. Blocking typically equates to negative emotions/intentions of sorts. On at least one end, if not both parties involved. "Right" or "wrong" being irrelevant.

Letting a sender know they're blocked will bother them. Letting the receiver know the blocked user is still persisting might be "nice" for the receiver, depending on what their aim is, but also creates negativity of a different sort in the receiver.
 
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@Freezee

I don't propose a work-around for a block I just don't want blocks to enable sniping, wherein someone sends a hostile message, and then swiftly blocks the recipient.

It would be hard to keep your proposed policy secret; and, in any case, sniping would remain a problem unless something else were also done. In fact, sniping might then be still more attractive. My primary suggestion, of removing messages that are swiftly followed by a block, is compatible with having blocks be as silent as possible.

(For what very little it's worth, blocking on Instagram causes all private messages from the blocker to be erased or pushed into limbo. I think that's going too far, but it's simpler to implement.)
 
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I understand, but what I'm saying is... what you call sniping is a perfectly valid thing to do.

By enabling some form of a workaround to blocking (for what you call sniping), that therefore breeds further negativity. The goal of what I'm proposing would be annoying to you knowing you cannot retort, but ultimately, you must drop it and block the person. The person doing the blocking originally must also drop it in some form.

I've done what you call sniping in the past a decade ago when I was a giant piece of garbage. I've also been victim to it. Multiple times.

Both ended up making me ultimately unhappy, and several times angry too. Regardless of which side I was on. It made me into an obsessive monster, some of which still remain to this day. Though I try and keep it in check.

There is no proper workaround for what you're proposing without other consequences.

Think about it: say you were allowed to respond to said sniper. Then you block them. Then they also return another hateful message to get back at you perhaps before this "anti sniping window" passes. Rinse and repeat; blocking becomes useless. When you're angry/ annoyed, it's easy to focus on said anger/annoyance because you have the time to spare for it.

It won't end. It doesn't. It has to be stopped outright, not given leeway to one person or the other.

The instagram method is perfect. That's exactly what needs to be done to stop both sides, "justifiably so" or not. It would work in your favor too, since you no longer have to deal with the person who harassed you at all.
 
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I agree that allowing a retort to what would otherwise be a snipe can produce some poor results. Noting the shortcoming of alternative approaches is useful, but it's not the same thing as identifying an unacceptable flaw in what I'm proposing.

The Instagram approach actually isn't perfect, because it means that at least one of the two people doesn't have a record to review, perhaps causing him or her to reconsider what actually happened. That imperfection doesn't prove that it's not, ultimately, the best solution; but it's something to recognize.

What I propose is not to wipe all the messages ever sent by the blocker, but just any message sent by the blocker very shortly before the block. If you think that the Instagram approach is best, then why is it better than what I propose?
 
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I think that rather than asking the devs to implement something so complicated and arbitrary, you should just block whoever sent the message, delete it, and move on.
 
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@Oeconomist

I know how you feel, but that won't work. That could backfire really hard.

Imagine you blocked a bunch of people, sent them their "JUST REWARDS" response.
Then you get flooded with their response to your "JUST REWARDS" response.

Well, you blocked them, but now you still got access to whatever thread you disagreed with them on. . . . . . or whatever future threads they post in. Or you're not logged in and can still see them posting or whatever workaround on this site.

So you post in that thread and then the friends of those guys you blocked tell them you just served them a "JUST DESSERTS" response. . . . . . . and thus a flame war where everyone is blocked has started.


*edit: were corrected to where.
 
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@crazybars

You're not responding to what I actually wrote, but to what you expected me to have written.

My proposal was and is that if an account blocks another, then any message sent by the blocking account to the blocked account shortly before the block should be deleted. This is not about allowing counter-strikes.

I did note that there were other possible to have other anti-sniping policies instead. But describing those other possibilities is not the same thing as endorsing them.
 
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@MrIncognito

Ultimately, it is up to the programmers to decide upon what their willing to do. But what I've described is not very complicated. When a block is imposed, software simply looks for messages send by the blocking account to the blocked account within the last N seconds, and deletes any that it finds.

The Instagram approach is still simpler; it deletes (or hides) all message from the blocking account to the blocked account (and vice versa) regardless of when they were sent. But I've explained why I don't favor that approach.
 
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@MrIncognito posted:

I think that rather than asking the devs to implement something so complicated and arbitrary, you should just block whoever sent the message, delete it, and move on.
Pretty much, to be honest. I don't understand what the problem is, or what the auto-delete time window before a block is supposed to solve exactly. Having that window doesn't guarantee the recipient won't be able to read it in time, which seems like the intended consequence.

When it's clear that the person you're dealing with doesn't actually want to have a dialogue, you have absolutely no reason to pay any kind of attention to what they're saying. Their childish drive-by message becomes nothing but words thrown at you and as such ceases to have any meaningful content, so it's not even worth your time to fret over it. Block and forget.
 
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@Teasday

The purpose of the proposal is to reduce the perceived expected payoff to snipers, so that there is less sniping. Sniping is a corrosive behavior. Sure, what I propose it imperfect, but so is blocking itself. (Blocks can be evaded by special-purpose accounts.)

I'd be surprised to learn that sniping were already a big problem here; but I wouldn't be surprised to learn that it became a significant problem over time. I was hoping for the developers to get ahead of it. Anyway, if in future you decide that something must be done about sniping, please recall my suggestion.
 
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I recognize you already have a more official response about your proposal here, but I feel it needs to be said given my past experiences...

In all my time, I have never heard of this term you call "sniping". It's not really an accurate way of describing what you desire.

But if it were accurate... take cover (block) and move out of range (delete) to not have to deal with the "sniping". If you want to "counter snipe", prepare for a long drawn out fight since there's no headshot instakills in this 1v1 sniping arena (private messages). A slowly rising cover would not ultimately change anything (your suggestions). All it would do is prolong the fight further. The ammunition of this sniping arena (messages) can't penetrate to anywhere it would physically incapacitate the opposition to actually settle things. If one side in the arena wishes to take a pot shot and instantly take cover, that's ultimately the end result if both sides engage.

Outside of that analogy, you realize you're posting in a public forum right?

Thus, the person who you clearly want to get back at in some form, if they cared to see your response would be RELISHING in your behavior. Especially with how you typed out this suggestion, stating this as a clear response to being disturbed. Which is very likely the EXACT response a person who sends an inflammatory message and blocked you afterward wants you to be feeling.

I'm not going to assume anything about people, but you need to realize how much your own behavior feeds the exact thing you propose fixing. The solution to which is in your control already: you blocking and deleting the offending user/message. As you've been told multiple times, some more direct than others.

Now to be clear, I'm not saying any of this with negative intent or malice. I'm not sure how to truly convey that through the medium of English text.

My intent is to make you aware of a potential trap you fell for. This is in regards to a person aiming to gain pleasure out of other people's displayed negative emotions. All your responses here indicate that you do not understand that potential.
 
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@Freezee

The term “snipe” is an accurate descriptor for what I want to prevent. In the original sense, a sniper is one who shoots from a position chosen, one way or another, to dramatically reduce the possibility of a return shot.

I don't want to counter-snipe, and I am frankly resentful of repeated comments written as if that it what I am seeking or advocating. (You can find my actual proposal in the first comment to this thread.)

I have suggested a mechanism to reduce the pay-off to sniping — a mechanism to have snipe-shots deleted before most of the victims are hit.

I am not trying here to get back at a particular sniper or group of snipers. I am trying to get Mangadex ahead of a problem. The sniper whose behavior cause me to think of how it might have been prevented is unlikely to have read this comment, and I really don't much give a damn whether he is gloating after the fact; that would have little effect on whether sniping continues and becomes an increasing problem, which are all matters of the future and of how the system responds to sniping (if at all).

In all this, you haven't answered the question that I asked you earlier: If you think that the Instagram approach is best, then why is it better than what I propose? (You can find my actual proposal in the first comment to this thread.)
 
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@Oeconomist

?????????????????????????????????????????????????

Is that what you proposed, I truly had no idea? If the user who messaged you then blocked you, you want the forum board or messaging system to then censor the message from the user who blocked you?


What's stopping the user from just send a snide comment, not read your messaged response and then block you? If anything, you sending a message after their "Sick Burn" would tell the sending user you're mad, which would amuse and please them because that was the point of that snide comment.
 
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@crazybars

I wasn't talking about forum comments. I'd be a bit surprised at an attempt to snipe in a forum, exactly because a block cannot prevent a reply in a forum.

My attention was drawn to the issue after someone with whom I'd disagreed in a forum sent a private message that included abuse and then blocked me to prevent a response. (Had the message been pure abuse, then I probably would have disregarded it, and not discovered the block.)

There's always indeed the logical possibility of a person waiting for a reply, not reading it, and then effecting a block, or never effecting a block but never reading any further messages from the other person. Such behavior might not be laudable, but it doesn't have the same corrosive effect. Again, what I'm seeking is a reduction in sniping, not a guarantee that disputants can return fire.

Imagine that we lived in a community in which people were sometimes throwing molotov cocktails and then fleeing into the darkness, and I proposed a way of catching many of those cocktails before they hit their targets. You could argue that the people who threw the cocktails would do something else nasty, or that my method wouldn't really catch a lot of the cocktails, or that too many owls would be injured, or that the whole thing would cost too much money. But my proposal would be nothing like asking that the people throwing the cocktails be held where cocktails could be thrown at them.
 

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