Even though MSTies are the coolest, most respectful fandom in the biz—duh, obviously—we know that there will inevitably be disagreements. There may be people you’d rather avoid than risk arguing with, or maybe you just can’t take another opinion about pineapple on a pizza … what can you do then?
Luckily, Discourse has some fairly robust Mute and Ignore features built-in. Are they perfect? No. But in most cases they could be a great help in making your MSD3K experience more pleasant. Here is a quick rundown on all of the Thread-Level and User-Level muting functions.
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For individual threads, Discourse provides several options for user engagement. Your preferences for any given thread are located at the bottom of it in this dropdown menu:
Your thread-level options are:
Watching
When you set a thread to Watching, you will receive a notification any time there is a reply, as well as a count of new replies since your last visit to the forum.
Tracking
When you set a thread to Tracking, you will receive a notification any time someone mentions your @name or replies/reacts to you, as well as a count of new replies since your last visit to the forum.
If you have posted in a thread, Discourse sets this value to "Tracking."
Normal
When you set a thread to Normal, you will receive a notification any time someone mentions your @name or replies/reacts to you. You will not see a count of new replies.
"Normal" is the default setting for topics in which you haven’t participated.
Muted
When you set a thread to Muted, you will never be notified of anything happening in that thread, even if they mention your @name or reply to you. Additionally, that thread will not show up in the “Latest” list.
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So what happens if you find that you and another user just can’t get along? Luckily, Discourse also provides several levels of muting at the user level. To access these settings, you must visit their full Profile page:
- Click on their name or avatar in the forum to open their User Card.
- Click on their name or avatar in the User Card to open their Profile.
From there you have several options under the dropdown menu on the right:
Normal
Normal view. Normal view. NORMAL VIEW!
Muted
When a user is set to Muted, you will be able to see their activity on the forum but will receive no notifications of it. (Note: if a muted user likes or replies to something you’ve posted, you will be notified but it will be listed as “unknown/deleted user.”) A muted user cannot send you private messages.
Ignored
When a user is set to Ignored, you will receive no notifications of their forum activity, even if they like or reply to something you have posted or mention you by @name. Their threads will still show in your “Latest” and “New” lists but you will not be shown new post counts. An ignored user cannot send you private messages.
~ But wait—there’s more! ~
When you choose to set a user to Ignore, you will be asked to choose a duration. Do you just need a few hours? Would you like to give your interactions a week or so to cool off? Or do you just think it’s never going to work? You have options. The next screen that pops up will ask you to make that choice:
You can then set the Ignore period to last until:
- Later today
- Tomorrow
- Later this week
- This weekend
- Monday
- Two weeks
- Next month
- Two months
- Three months
- Four months
- Six months
- One year
- Forever
NOTE: If you ignore a user, you will see “View 1 hidden reply” (or “View 2 hidden replies,” etc.) in place of their comment(s). If you choose to do so, you can click on that message and see what they have posted.
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IMPORTANT: Muting or ignoring another user is a private matter, not an antagonistic one. The only person who needs to know that you have muted/ignored someone is you. Announcing that you have placed restrictions another user is not permitted.
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User-Level Muting—Method #2 & Maintenance
You can also set and/or edit User-Level Muting from your own Profile page by viewing your Preferences>Users:
From this screen you can:
- See a list of all of your Ignored and Muted forum members
- Add/remove Ignored and Muted forum members
- Set Discourse so that you will only receive PMs from forum members you choose
