I'd like to say, that I have been struggling with people I've blocked. My struggle lies with the fact I can still see them chat. It makes me uncomfortable, more so when its someone who's harassed me for a bit. Now I don't mind them buying/breeding my pets. Or whatever else pet related. I really just don't want to see them talk if that makes sense. I also would like it if they couldn't tag me on a forum I posted. And if I could also not see what they posted. I know that dealing with that in region chat blocking their chats would be hard to script. But maybe for the future. I know its probably asking for a lot. And I am sorry but, I'd just like to not have to be stuck around the person who harassed me.

I'm with you at this point. I was actually confused why I could see someone I blocked writing in RC, since the reason for blocking them was that I _not_ want to see them anywhere around anymore, haha.

It might be actually hard to code that only you don't see their messages in forums etc anymore, but that the person is still able to ping you in forums is a true :| moment.

Since I don't know coding at all, an option would maybe be to not fully hide their messages, but to just make the message show "User blocked" instead of their message?
Could also work with forum posts, now that I think of it... Still, that's only one way around the issue since you still see the name.



On another note:
I hope that you're not getting harassed by anyone at any time anymore. Nobody should've to deal with harassment on a pet site nor anywhere else since you should be able to enjoy your stay!!

It's really stressful, some of these kids on here don't understand boundaries. Or maybe they flat out ignore them. But seeing them in chat trying to talk to me. After I told them to stop multiple times. Harassing me over a few pets and a 3v theme. Then blocking them just for them to be like. "Sorry for the way I acted." in RC It make my skin bump up and crawl.

As of right now, the block feature only works on private messages and mini chat, and I don't know how difficult it would be to code a blanket block on all communication avenues on the site. It may not be possible, or be so difficult that it's not worth it.

However, if you were being harassed, I hope you reported it to Krin. He doesn't want players being harassed, and he will deal with the harassing individual, all the way up to banning their IP.

Mikazuki is spot on~ if you suspect harassment please document and report it and trust Krin to deal with it.

As for the current suggestion, I'd support a separate block feature in the forums but separate from the ones the PM's use. Players might have differing reasons for blocking players via pm but not forums~ For example I'll block PM's from players who solicit random pets to me for no reason when I've never expressed any interest or even talked to them; however I run giveaways and do pet/item sales via the forums - just because I don't want people soliciting me via PM doesn't mean I want to completely block all messages from them.

To add to that, I've 100% accidentally blocked someone before without even realizing it and I think it was because my fat fingers hit the wrong button on my phone while trying to exit out of a message. If they hadn't been able to get a hold of me another way I never would have known. TwT

As far as blocking in the region chat and chatrooms go however I don't believe that's in any way in the best interests of the site. There are too many issues that can crop up if such a feature were to be implemented.

1.) Say you (Player A) blocked a player (Player B) and can't see any of their responses in chat. Someone (Player C) posts a pet in chat and asks if anyone's interested and said blocked Player's A and B both respond. Player A can't see any of Player B's responses and could be carrying on a conversation with Player C even though Player C is talking to Player B because maybe Player B responded first. Player C might type Player B's username (which Player A can then see) or they might not (which would then proceed with Player A carrying on a conversation that they're not actually part of).

2.) There's harassment (which of course should just be documented and reported) and then there's also other players that will say things that other players might not like which they call "mean". These could be very cut and dry statements, they could just be blunt, they could have mistyped OR someone might have just taken it the wrong way. There's only so much that you can get from typed words sometimes. Joking tones don't always carry through and misunderstandings can happen.

Yes, sometimes players can say things that come off as mean or rude- usually it's when someone is being overly obnoxious in the chatrooms/breaking rules. If they get too out of hand, usually another player will let them know. If it seems like a lot of people are talking against a single player, other players will usually speak up to let the majority know the point got across and to drop it. If someone asks to change the subject because a topic is too sensitive then most players will~ (There's a good guideline for this.)

The answer should never be to just block a player out because someone doesn't like what they say, doesn't like them or maybe the player was being "mean" because they offered blunt/detailed advice. Being able to instantaneously block people will probably have players blocked over small, stupid misunderstandings or even new players being...well, newbies.

If you don't want to talk to a player, ignore them, they'll get the hint when you don't respond. If seeing them chat or talk bothers you, minimize the chat screen and come back to the chat later.

If I remember correctly, there is a way to block pings from people, but I think you can only do it via the block symbol on a forum ping. If that's the case, it'd be nice to have a way to block pings outside of being sent one.

I don't know how rc works on the backend, but if it isn't excessively difficult or impossible to implement, I think it'd be good to have a block system there too.

Maybe keep it as a separate category(?) of block in case people only want them blocked in one place.

I can see how having no trace of their messages could occasionally get confusing. Maybe being able to see that they typed something but having the content replaced by "blocked message" or something similar could help a bit?

As far as subpar reasoning for blocking, I legitimately don't see how that's a problem big enough to warrant not having a chat block system of some kind. People could be blocked from pinging or sending PMs for petty reasons too, but we have blocking as an option so that people can do it when it is warranted.

People can and should tell krin if they're being harassed, but krin can't fix everything immediately. He's got tons to do, and responses could take days. Telling krin isn't a replacement for being able to block.

After more... interactions in RC, I think this should really get some consideration. It's hard to moderate your own online experience when blocking someone essentially does nothing other than keep them out of your PMs. Often, the situations that led up to said blocking were in RC to begin with. Additionally, only blocking PMs has resulted in the blocked party spamming RC to try to force interactions with the person that wants to set a boundary. This has resulted in the person getting peer pressured to unblock so they can talk in DMs rather than have the whole issue dragged into the public sphere.

Personally, I'd like to be able to block individuals and have that block include region chat, forums, and breeding/pet sales though it's the former that matters most. For forums Flight Rising has a system where the message is present but the text is simply replaced with "This user has been blocked." which is good in providing context for why some of the conversation may appear to skip about. Doing something similar in RC would work as well if it's easier to make a script for text replacement rather than hiding all messages from blocked individuals. As for breeding and pet sales, that may just be me being petty and I guess overall it doesn't really matter. But for me personally, if I block someone I want nothing to do with them and seeing them in my notifications would still be irritating.

I also would like it if we could block in RC. I've had full blown panic attacks and telling someone "Just don't be in RC then" when most of the Fest trading happens there- is pretty ridiculous.