Watch/Ignore on forums

The forums seem really lacking in functionality compared to email and newsgroup readers (especially actually good ones and not Outlook).

That being said, if it's not possible or difficult to make the ignore poster feature actually hide all messages from that person instead of the annoying "this person is on your ignore list" message, and it's not possible to implement an "ignore thread" feature to prevent the same uninteresting crap from floating to the top again and again on the New Posts page, then could we ditch the forums entirely and move on to something that does provide such basic functionality, such as an NNTP server a-la gmane.org or a listserv a-la debian.org?

Other advantages to a non-forum approach include easier to use and snappier interfaces for users (let's face it: vbulletin is about as useful and fast as Hotmail circa 1994 right after they got animated banner ads), not to mention choice in interface (forums are rather draconian in the "you will do it our braindamaged way or no way at all" interface designs they tend to incorporate, and often lack proper threading and highlight/ignore thread/author functionality, as is the problem with vbulletin), and the ability to read offline (go ahead, try to catch up on a forum with your laptop on the train...).

So, can we get the forums moved to something functional, or failing that, at least hack the functionality into the forum?

I wish we had a 'ignore bigoted thread' button.

It wouldn't necessarily even need to be a bigoted thread. It could just be a boring one, or one that isn't of any interest to you. The point being, the feature would allow people to tune out the noise and tune in the signal better, raising the quality of the experience for each avatar based on their interests.

Despite claims to the contrary I don't think LL has much interest in revamping the forums.

/me recoils in shock.
The devil you say!

Yep, it makes it SO hard to get that proper *plonk* sound when you toss someone in your killfile.

BUt there is NO WAY you're going to get webforum denizens to venture into Usenet technology. Been there, done that, got the embarrassing bitemarks.

That might be the case, but given the complexity of SL in general, and the sheer simplicity of NNTP comparatively (to SL or this convoluted forum), I'm not sure they're a segment of the population that really gets to have an opinion on this.

Yeah, I know, it's a shock that someone who has worked in the IT sector as long as I have can still expect people to have a little common sense while at the keyboard...

Or a little common courtesy.

You this big a prick in RL?

She who lives in a glass house would be wise to not throw stones.

*sigh*

"BOFH" is a joke, Baloo.

I had the glass removed years ago. I got tired of cleaning up.

I'm aware of that. I just don't see how expecting a little common sense is perceived as rude rather than the expected minimum for human interaction.

If it was, BOFH wouldn't be funny.

It's the 'noise' of the forums that interests me - assholes* and all.

As for ignore buttons? I didn't even notice they existed. Like the in-world 'mute' button, I don't see the point.

* Can I say "assholes" on the forum?