Ask Lemmy

Beyond the obvious trolls and complete loons, I also block people who never contribute an original comment or post and only reply to other comments in order to "correct" other people or "call them out". Their comment history makes it immediately obvious when they are this type of user.

They strike me as particularly cowardly and obnoxious, because they only want to attack / start something against, and never risk a simple original assertion of their own. Offense being the best defense, etc. They probably think of themselves as verbal judo masters.

IOW, they are basically using Lemmy as fodder for their pedantry. I'm not interested at all in engaging with this type of jackass. Unfortunately there are a lot of them on the internet. My block list is long.

Spam/scam mostly.

Only one block due to spam. Even the user name was cheap{goodstype}.

Usually there is no point blocking, you get banned for the stuff I'd block anyway.

1. Being off-topic - i consider it spam
2. Obscene language if it does happen all the time
3. Hypocrites and people using ad hitlerum or playing on emotions arguments

Never blocked anyone

Disagreeing with me in a comment.

I will argue into oblivion and keep someone unblocked

They keep debating and polluting my inbox when I said I won't reply anymore.

I've only ever blocked one person, a former friend who hurt me very badly. I doubt they'd ever try to contact me again anyway, but I needed to make sure that bridge stays burned.

Mostly racism, sexism, bad-faith arguments, and some religious stuff. I often double-check a person's post history to make sure I'm not just reading it wrong. I also do so to make sure I'm not blocking someone for a single bad day or bad take.

I think younger me would have argued more or tried to convince them of things by showing evidence, but I just don't have the time or energy at the moment; I have a full-time job, a small farm, and home maintenance on the (used) house I moved into 6 months ago.

My block list on here is only that stupid media bias rating bot so far. If this place gets like reddit with a dozen idiotic bots butting into every conversation while adding nothing of value, they'll get blocked as well.

Speaking more generally, I block my abusive ex on everything.

A demonstration that the person is not interested in a conversation, they just want to grandstand and use rhetoric tricks to feel like they are superior and are strictly aiming to used the conversation as a way to inflate their sense of self worth at the cost of treating you like a human being.

"No way I am reading all that" on a average sized post while expounding their opinion in an equally lengthy paragraph is usually the same start of the end. These people are generally not actively trolling they are just up their own ass. If they cannot demonstrate basic intellectual mutual respect after having this pointed out to them blocking them is both for best of us.

A particular pet peeve is people who quote every bit of a post in sections to refute it. It's lazy and I have witnessed it from people in my life who are extremely narcissistic. Writing your own brief is respectful. Essentially writing over someone else's entire post with red pen isn't. It's not a block, but it's a contributing factor

If it's someone using very bad faith rhetoric like moving goalposts or extreme cherrypicking - basically any stuff that demonstrates obvious trolling I don't block, I counterpunch. My goal becomes making sure you do not leave the arguement with what you come there for.

All in all I have blocked about 3 people. I believe in second chances so someone has to show no signs of improvement after about an average of 7 replies.

Being unnecessarily rude, or arguing in bad faith. Got about a dozen people on my block list.

I don't block many people except for certain circumstances.

Somethings I might block people for specifically may include:

How kindly they vocally talk about minority people.

Do they they post about certain embarassing things.

Do they post illegal images or content?

Therew others so the reasons are not exclusive to this.