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What do you block people for?

Do you have a criteria for what qualifies as block-worthy offence or are you just doing it when you feel like it?

Bonus question: how long is your block list?

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  • My blocklist is 30~40 users long. [For reference, my blocklist in Reddit reached 400 or so.]

    To keep it short, I typically block people who, egregious or consistently:

    • show lack of reasoning, even if I agree with the conclusion
    • misrepresent what others say
    • take things off context to judge them, even if I agree with the judgement
    • vomit lots of "hard" certainty on things that they cannot reasonably know (e.g. the others' emotional states over the internet)
    • engage in passive aggressiveness (note that I tolerate some clear hostility, just not pass-aggro)
    • show clear signs of sealioning (e.g. "I don't understand" + misrepresentation of what someone else said)
    • tell others shit like "trust me" = "I expect you to be a gullible piece of rubbish"

    Note that "egregious or consistently" are key words here. Like, I'm not going out of my way to block someone out of a brainfart; this is not some sort of petty revenge, it's just removing from my sight people who I believe to not contribute with my overall Lemmy experience. I also don't take issue when people block me, for whatever reason they might have.

    • I'll reply to myself to avoid editing the above. The other user made me realise that what I said about pass-aggro is unclear - since the expression is used with multiple meanings.

      In this specific context, by passive aggressiveness, I mean "an utterance showing politeness as a disguise for rudeness".

      I'll give you guys an example. Imagine that Alice says "I saw a potato tree today". And Bob replies to Alice one of the following:

      1. "Potatoes do not grow on trees."
      2. "Potato tree? Are you braindead or what?"
      3. "Yeah sure, and I saw some unicorns today. Because you know, potatoes totally grow on trees, right?"
      4. "Oh dear perhaps you're a bit confused, so let me enlighten you. Potatoes do not grow on trees. I understand that this might be a bit too complex for you to understand, but put on some effort, okay?"

      The first three are not pass-aggro. #1 is simply dry (no attempt at politeness or rudeness); #2 is simply rude (I'm typically OK with that within limits). #3 uses irony and sarcasm in such an obvious way that it comes off as simply rude, there's no attempt to use the irony to disguise the insult. Only #4 is pass-aggro, as it calls Alice stupid and lazy in a disguised way.

      I tend to block people who do this because they rub me off the wrong way - it shows a lack of dignity to be upfront that you don't see in plain rudeness.

132 comments