I block only when I see a user who is unhinged enough and is obviously not getting banned by moderators. Usually theses people can be baited into making terrible arguments terrible opinions backed by either terrible ideology or lies, and mods can deal with them.

I think reporting users is more effective to not let the whole site become completely unusable by attracting shitheads/trolls/agitators who even if blocked keep posting garbage because that might be seen by new users.

Also responding to them is taxing on some people’s mental health, so this isint for everyone and I get why people might opt for it. I prefer arguing since there is a chance that they might be misinformed or hot headed (me included).

Honestly it depends on how you want to engage with a platform.

I use the Boost app, so I just tag users who are being annoying. I only rarely block someone.

I block freely. My time and attention and mental and emotional bandwidth are limited resources, and to the extent possible I intend to spend them carefully.

I wish there was a hide posts option, rather than a flat out block. There are some overly prolific posters that i would like to block, but their comments are not an issue, just the 40 rapid fire posts they make everyday.

I hardly ever block individual posters, but communities, I’ve blocked 936 of them at the time of making this post. Sports, porn, anime, or furry shit are all block on sight. Plus a handful of randoms that I’m just not interested in.

I’ve finally got All where it’s pleasant to browse. Takes some doing, but worth the effort if you want to customize your feed reductively vs actively seeking out and subscribing to communities.

It’s great for your mental state.

Just be aware of any filter bubble you might create. If you block every person that has an opposite perspective, you’ll fall into your own echo chamber.

People who I notice just dont get jokes and are in 20 different meme communities being all serious? Blocked.

Been doing this with a warning system. I tag shitty people and block them if I see a person who is tagged acting shitty.

2 years in, no regrets.

I do wish Lemmy would fix the blocking system though. If someone who I’ve blocked responds to me, I don’t see it. Fair enough, but I also don’t see what people who respond to that say. I feel like it should just show the username as [blocked] and the content as [hidden] with an option for me to show that content/username, while keeping the rest of the child content fully visible.

I have gone through phases of blocking very vocal idiots, but then as you said I feel at an informational disadvantage.

I’ve gotten recently into tagging people with descriptions of repeated behavior. That way I still know what’s going on, but I know what to expect from them.

I’m more on mastodon and their filter system is so nice

I made a filter for “idiot did a thing” and every time the news has another article about how some idiot whose name is on my list did something again, as they do, because that’s all they’ve been doing for 20 years, I no longer have to read it.

But I still get the little “something was blocked, click here to read it” thing, so it’s very satisfying.

I don’t block often, but I would expect it’s a similar upgrade.

I think the ability or willingness to have a decent conversation with people who have a different opinion is important for the advancement of ideas and a cornerstone of what we call civilization. I find it so weird to see how people “debate” these days instead of conversing, it’s somehow more about winning than finding the truth of a matter. Watch for example how political discourse has changed over the last few decades, compare discussions from the 70s like Chomsky vs Foucault to the circus of today. People are already largely separated in different platforms, blocking only exacerbates the bubble effect. That being said, to each their own and I hope your life is better for it.

Keep it up. Don’t let FOMO loosen your standards. If people acted like this to you in person, you would avoid them. Do it online as well.

Sadly we interact so much online that the bad behavior of social media is now informing people how to behave IRL.

I’ve gotten more aggressive with blocks lately. Feels like there’s been a lot more arguing and drama on here lately than usual, and I haven’t been on as much because of it. Blocking at least drowns a lot of that out.

I’m using Boost, so I’ve been using tagging a lot. It’s useful to remind yourself whether someone routinely behaves in a way that you don’t want to interact with.

I’ve probably untagged more people than I’ve blocked at this point. People are complicated, moods change with the weather.

Also helped me to correlate that the majority of my tags were on ml users. I’ve filtered that instance and, can’t lie, using Lemmy is much nicer now.

I mainly block accounts that seem like they have an agenda. Usually new accounts they post a lot about one very controversial topic. Likewise, I block accounts that are concern trolling or arguing in bad faith. There are so many bots and bad faith actors on the internet I feel like you should be blocking them because they don’t deserve our attention.