i cannot agree with the argument of "just use css". why should you have to mod a game in order to enjoy it?

I play via mobile only bc I am in a situation where I cannot afford a computer and a monthly wifi bill on top of all my other bills. I can't use the tampermonkey CSS like I wish I could and I don't think I could just apply the CSS to my site skin either. I agree with Mike because one, not all kids have the computer literacy to be able to do the multiple steps it takes to use the tampermonkey code (let alone report or understand the bugs it has, and I follow the thread for the code and i know bugs are reported almost daily) and two, there are people who only play mobile whether it be by choice or by circumstance who do not have the option to use the code.

I would just like to say, since I've seen a lot of it- Saying that some people should "grow up and be an adult" is not right. You can't force someone to hunch their shoulders back and handle the situation themselves. It is a skil that children should learneventually, but seeing as this is a child-friendly site, children play on here, and some may have difficulty doing that, even with a parent around. And not just kids, but ids of all ages. I won't disagree with the fact that blocking people for petty things could (and probably will)create hurt feelings and exclusion. It's a pretty obvious outcome. The thing is, some people may just feel uncomfortable with certain people or not want to interact with them due to a conflict in the past. A likely counter: "Just ignore them, then!" What if THEY contact YOU? "Again, ignore them! If it becomes reportable, just report them." It's not easy just to"ignore them". Some people(like me) find it irksome to get PMs or random trades from someone you don't want to see, or sending/recieving interactions to/from someone you don't want to click or get clicked by. I agree that blocking them would still create hurt feelings, so I'm gonna see if someone else could think of a solution/end to my post.

Custom CSS like described in this thread is easy to implement on mobile, even for the computer-illiterate. It does work injected into skins: That's how I use it.

I'll be open and honest about this: There is a now-inactive user on Pokefarm that harassed me to a near s*cide attempt when I was only 14. I came across their profile a year ago, and while it did trigger bad memories, I ultimately just clicked the 'next' button. If I can do it-- as a person with anxiety, autism, ptsd, and more, I believe the general public will be able to do it. I don't like people using their past experiences as a excuse to open a gateway to mistreating other people. This may be narrow minded of me, but... it's my opinion and I'm entitled to it. Again, I feel less safe with a block feature because exclusion is more painful than direct harassment. With the proper coping skills, direct harassment is more easy to handle. You can laugh at all the effort they're taking to hurt you, you can rise above it and feel superior. You can't escape that way with a click of a button to be silenced. And that's what this is, silencing people: This may be a UK based site but I'm rather sure they still have the concept of free speech there.

I may imput more on this later, but please try not to double post ^^

look. your experience isn't invalidated, but you had to learn to sort things out the hard way. I'm 14 years old and mature enough to take care of my problems, but what about all those 8, 9, 10-year-olds playing this game ? do you want them to have to learn to act like an adult when they are only 8 ? my little brother is 9 and if he had to do this he wouldn't get over it. he is very very sensitive. I dont want other kids his age to suffer through it. it is not easy to ignore people, specially when they send negative messages to you and you can't do anything but ""ignore them"". you have gone through a lot and /now/, that you are 21, you can just click next, but others won't because they are more sensitive, more scared, or for any reason, and they are also valid. if you scroll up and check people's profiles, you'll see some of this people are 9-10 year olds. some are even arguing against you. so try thinking how would you feel if when you were younger you had the option to block that person harassing you. like also said before, i disagree with having to use a css to not see others, you have to change the game yourself to be able to play in peace.

Please do not invalidate my experience. In my experience with exclusion and harassment, both were painful, but exclusion was exponentially more painful than harassment. I'll be open and honest about this: There is a now-inactive user on Pokefarm that harassed me to a near s*cide attempt when I was only 14. I came across their profile a year ago, and while it did trigger bad memories, I ultimately just clicked the 'next' button. If I can do it-- as a person with anxiety, autism, ptsd, and more, I believe the general public will be able to do it. I don't like people using their past experiences as a excuse to open a gateway to mistreating other people. This may be narrow minded of me, but... it's my opinion and I'm entitled to it. Again, I feel less safe with a block feature because exclusion is more painful than direct harassment. With the proper coping skills, direct harassment is more easy to handle. You can laugh at all the effort they're taking to hurt you, you can rise above it and feel superior. You can't escape that way with a click of a button to be silenced. And that's what this is, silencing people: This may be a UK based site but I'm rather sure they still have the concept of free speech there...

...If it's genuine abuse or bullying, staff can and will take care of it. However, if we allow blocking for any reason- it will be used for reasons such as petty disagreements, 'bad vibes' and 'they make me uncomfortable' with no concrete wrongdoing, like how the feature is socially abused on other sites with block features. This has disastrous implications in a game that requires everyone to be able to interact with everyone for a fair chance. If one person blocks another, it's no big deal, but it can snowball. Friend groups and cliques exist on every site, and before you know it you'll have one user blocked by a signifigant amount of active players, thus completely harming their playability.

Please take a moment to think of how you'd react at 8, 9 or 10 being excluded and blocked for little to no reason.

I change the game for ease of access, not for peace- it's just coincindence the same script I use to stack the click buttons also hides profiles. Please take a moment to think of how you'd react at 8, 9 or 10 being excluded and blocked for little to no reason. This comes down to who gets hurt more, and i think the blockee gets hurt more than the blocker because the blockee doesn't have a choice in how their gameplay is affected, or how their free speech is affected. Blocking basically gives anyone the power to be a mini-mod. Again, I've offered a suggestion of compromise: Make blocks have an expiration, could be a day, could be a week. Gives people time to cool down. Harassers will likely give up and forget by that tiime. I'm not perfect. I'm still sensitive. I'm still scared myself. You don't know all the traumas I've been through and I'm not obligated or obliged to share them all. But part of why I feel safe on Pokefarm is because no one can censor me over 'dislike' or 'bad vibes.' As long as I follow the rules I'm safe. And that's something I can agree with. No one gets to make up their own rules to shut me down.

Maybe they can, maybe they cannot. The case of cannot is just as valid as the case of can, or? Me and others have brought up in previous posts a system for forum blocking which makes it so that threads on things that will affect every site user cannot be affected by forum block. TLDR; Some sections of the forum will not be affected by a block in the name of keeping discussions open for everyone. In these places there has been suggested things like hiding the post of a person you've blocked so you can decide on interacting or opting out of the discussion. For personal threads that do not affect more than the blocker and the blocked (Think journals, RPs, Art Shops etc.) you would not be able to post. This is a sentiment I find absurd. Yes, especially online you will find things that are offensive/triggering, but why would you not teach kids to remove that source of discomfort? Why would you advicate for children repeatedly exposing themselves to what they do not like in an effort to "grow thicker skin" when you can teach them ways to keep themselves safe by either not being in online spaces that expose them repeatedly to such things, or give them the tools for filtering? There is something to be said for first exposure being unavoidable, but it is another thing to allow repeat exposure and normalization. We should not put forth the sentiment to children that the horrible things done on the internet under the guise of anonymity is acceptable and inevitable. Yes the internet is horrible, but you don't have to contribute to that. It might be a thankless, endless job to provide safety to minors, but it should not be discarded as useless. And yes you can "block" someone irl. You can refuse to be in the same space as them, you can refuse to engage with them, you can ignore them. If someone says something terrible to you, you as an autonomous person with free will can and should remove yourself from that situation irl or online, and a blocking function allows for stricter enforcement of personal boundaries in instances where involving laws is not an option for whatever reason. I genuinely don't think you said this in bad faith, but the implication of this wording is that you'd be fine with racism until the point you've decided it's "extremely prevalent" however much you personally and subjectively ("I don't see it.") decide what that is. Should you not have a zero tolerance policy on any and all racism? ... What? I should just move on from hidden, violent rhetoric that can and will hurt others? Why? I agree, no one should be forced to look at things they do not want to see. Implementing blocking as a filtering feature where I can hide aspects that I do not wish to look at from specific users will help me not having to repeatedly expose myself to it. If your point here is that I should be able to just not read things naturally, that would mean I need to personally make a conscious effort to look away from visual elements that pop up over and over and maybe even at random times if there is someone specific I do not wish to look at. Constant vigilance in keeping your vision off of such things will become tiring if all you want is to avoid is certain cards while clicking online users, for example, and hiding it will make the game more accessible to me again. If my vision is naturally pulled towards giant bold letters on my screen, is it fully my fault then if I am exposed to something unpleasant, and do I deserve the discomfort? Here I will disagree outright for what might be concidered "controversial" reasons. You are not owed my time, as I am not owed yours. If I find we were to fundamentally disagree in a manner that does not break site rules, but would make any possible interactions unpleasant in nature of our disagreement, I would argue for that I shouldn't have to spend my limited time on this earth interacting with you. If you wish to dispute this, I have mentioned an additional feature of being able to contest blocks in my first post in this thread.

I'm not going to repeat points @whiimsicott made that I agree with. That'd just be a waste of time and bog down this already ridiculously large post. However, I too want to state that while I do not wish to invalidate your experiences, they are not universal and how you deal with and handle issues will not be feasible for everyone. In a discussion such as this, one cannot draw purely on one person's personal beliefs and experiences, though they are very valuable as proof of one viewpoint and needs to be met when implementing something for everyone. This is a misuse of the concept of free speech. Free speech does not mean everyone has to platform or listen to you, or even that you are owed their time of day. Freedom of speech functions solely in protecting you from being legally persecuted for what you say. Aka staff cannot censor you. Everyone else doesn't have to listen at all, harsh as that may be. That's how freedom of speech works. This will require personal management to upkeep. If blocks are not permanent people will -instead of letting them expire- ensure they renew them. That is more effort on the blocker's part, and defeats the purpose of the block being non-permanent in the first place. It's and interesting concept, but I think something like contesting blocks (as I've mentioned earlier) or perhaps other solutions would work better. Subjectivity aside, why is the harm that can follow from exposure less relevant than the harm from having boundaries enforced upon you? How do you judge which harm is more valid objectively? How is a stable (or stagnation as you refer to it as. I disagree with this sentiment, which is why I've renamed it stability. Feel free to disagree.) space to exist in online bad? Enforcing your own boundaries and giving your time and energy only to those who will respect that is a very valuable social skill. Concidering the sheer amount of people you are exposed to online, I wouldn't say it's unreasonable to have a stable homebase of friends to return to, nor to want to shield that stability by not inviting every single person you meet into said group. You cannot befriend everyone, it is physically impossible to have deep interpersonal connections with everyone. If someone blocks you that you've never interacted with before, that is a valid concern and maybe we should discuss under which circumstances blocking should be reportable instead of saying it should not exist at all, but I will stand by my point that one is allowed to reserve themselves from any social interaction for whatever reason they may have to set such boundaries. I can say that we SHOULD allow easy ways out, because not everything should be as tough as possible, and people does not need to be constantly pushed, and how would my point be less valid than yours, objectively speaking? I think we have two very different views on "censoring". You can still speak freely even if someone doesn't want to listen, and that would not be censoring you. If they supressed you, if they shut down your speech, if they interfered with what you said, that would be censoring, but not platforming you, giving you their time of day or simply not listening is not censoring. If someone doesn't want to listen to you, you aren't actually owed their time. It might suck if you have something you want to tell that person specifically, but it's not illegal for them to have personal boundaries.

[...] If you don't want to see someone's profile, there's custom CSS for that. If you don't want to see certian terms, there's chrome extensions for that. [...]

[...] but what does blocking do that just ignoring or reporting them doesn't do? [...]