block-list
block list
Part of the social network portability effort.
introduction
Many social networking sites provide the user the capability to "block" or "ignore" other users of those sites, typically because those other users are stalking, trolling, harrassing, or behaving negatively in some other way.
The "block list" effort documents how current social networking sites are handling these interactions in the hopes that this research can be used for developing a portable block list that a user could privately share with other sites (probably via oauth or openid or both) so that they could block a troll on one service, and have the troll automatically blocked on other services as well.
examples
When this section grows too large, move it to: block-list-examples and leave a link in place. The following services have a block or ignore feature.
- Flickr ("block this user" link when viewing a user's profile)
- Twitter ("block ((username))" link when viewing a user's profile, just under their friends list)
terminology
verbs
Verbs or actions in user interfaces that implement blocking/ignoring.
- "/ignore" is the IRC command to block messages from a nickname on a server in all channels.
- "block" is used by Flickr and Twitter
- "Remove block?" is used by Flickr on your block list page.
- on the profile page of a person that is block it says: "You're blocking ((username)). Undo?" where "Undo" is hyperlinked to a page that confirms the unblock.
- "unblock" is used by Twitter.
nouns
Nouns used in link text, URLs etc. in user interfaces that implement blocking/ignoring.
- "block list" is used by Flickr in the "Your Block List" hyperlink to the list of people you have blocked, see the bottom of your user contacts page, i.e. http://flickr.com/people/username/contacts/ where username is your "pretty URL" username on Flickr.
formats
See block-list-formats.
brainstorming
When this section grows too large, move it to: block-list-brainstorming and leave a link in place.
- XEN
issues
When this section grows too large, move it to block-list-issues and leave a link in place.
Does a block list need to represent levels of animosity? Most examples in the wild are binary: either someone is blocked or they aren't (unlike XFN or other buddy list taxonomies that allow for degrees of intimacy and clarity).
Couldn't this be an addition to XFN then, or would it be out of scope? --AlexandreSolleiro 16:36, 27 Oct 2007 (PDT)
It's not clear, since XFN has a strictly positive/neutral scope, and the use-cases (and user interfaces) of friends lists and block lists are so very different. In particular, so far, the research on block lists shows no taxonomy at all. Just a simple list of people that are "blocked". Therefore that should perhaps be the basis of a first attempt at a microformat. Tantek 23:06, 27 Oct 2007 (PDT)