I just wanted to share a new feature that’s been added to Discourse recently.
We all know that there’s a small group of probably less than 10 users who spoil the experience of others in this community. They say that they want to make Monzo better but the reality is that 95% of their posts are uncontructive negativity. And they’ll argue with anyone who understands what Monzo’s trying to do, that it’s not perfect yet but is sympathetic enough to patiently wait for the team to carry on building great things. This usually means that most threads where people are trying to give constructive criticism get derailed.
Well now there’s a way to avoid those users completely, Discourse has added the ability to Ignore other users. Not only does this stop you receiving notifications about their activity (which Muting people does too), it also hides their posts. You need to be a Trust Level 2 user in order to use this feature.
Once someone’s been ignored 5 times, the team are sent a DM to let them know too. So perhaps this will help highlight the users who are spoiling the experience here for everyone else as well
To ignore someone, simply go to https://community.monzo.com/u/YOURUSERNAME/preferences/users & enter the person’s username in the ignored field -
Is it better to ignore or mute, then? And what are the key differences? There are a couple that come to mind straight away, so thanks for highlighting this feature!
Hopefully not. The passionate community members here have a tendency to misuse the flagging feature for posts they simply don’t like, rather than on posts that are breaking the rules. Mob rule is not a good way to rule.
If Monzo want their forums to include only people who are 100% positive fans, then they should just say so, those who have criticisms will leave, but i don’t feel they completely want that.
We have this feature on elsewhere, but we don’t act on banning people who are ignored by a few others. Personally i don’t think its a great feature, ignoring people you don’t like isnt a great direction to an improved community, so I would urge caution and consideration before using it.
I think it’s a great feature. There’s a big difference between giving constrictive criticism & the type of behaviour that I described in the OP. IMHO Monzo should ban people who’re doing the latter because:
it spoils other’s experience, to the point that it can exacerbate mental health conditions
it stifles healthy debate, as threads get derailed
it puts people off joining the community because they don’t want to get caught up in these discussions
some of the comments about Monzo are misleading & will put people off using the service
It really isn’t, it’s such a small group of users who cause problems that it’ll have a negligible impact in the short term, until the team can step in. And the benefit for other users who’ve had to put up with this behaviour, despite sticking it out because they’re big Monzo fans, is huge.
I can’t think of anyone who regularly posts that I think “gosh, I wish I could block them”.
Even the ones I disagree with, I’ll either engage with them and share my opposite viewpoint, or I’ll just ignore them (but having taken on board what they’ve said to get a balanced perspective).
The “trolls” seem to have been silenced - I certainly don’t see any that are repeat offenders.
I see plenty of “I wish Monzo could do X/Y/Z”, or other personal viewpoints, but even the negative users are here to make a positive change (from what I’ve seen).
You obviously have a different view, and that’s fine - I just hope it works out well, and not like this thread, where Coral Crew have already ignored one of my questions to them directly…
Wheres the line though? I’m not sure there is a clear one. Where do i stand for example? i’m highly critical of a number of things Monzo are doing to the point where i think they’re flat out misleading people.
I’ve had a false flag as well for simply making a comment people didn’t like, and ive seen many other comments hidden not because they broke the rules but just because they weren’t glowing praise for Monzo.
I don’t think these are good reasons. If you mental health is effected by online comments, stop reading them. as for the rest of it, if monzo are concerned about that they should just close the forum. they seemingly already close threads under false reasons, so im guessing they’re going they way you want, but it just makes them look like they want to control the narrative. a community is healthy when it has varying views and debate.
In your opinion. What if they are just seeing things they think are bad for Monzo and are just as passionate about that but are displaying that in a different way? Your answer is to ostracise them. I’m not so sure that’s good.
anyway, my point is, be very careful with this feature or itll just bite you in the ass.
. Hopefully some people find it useful.
