my friend is a silent ghost

there are 2 little followers-related changes that i would like lichess to consider implementing

1. make a shadowbanned account's posts and messages readable to their followers. cuz if someone is rude for the site's general standards, that doesn't necessarily mean that everyone else doesn't want to see their content. some people use lichess to play chess with their friends. so it would make no sense to interfere with their private on-site communication. (just like you can still play casual games with a cheater)

and correspondingly an option to ignore your blacklist. that is hiding any public messages (in chats and the forum) of the accounts that you block (which might also include the moddy mods, unless they turn on the mod flag on their post). i search the forum and i see so many people occasionally inquire for this feature. of how they almost feel forced to keep arguing with their arch-nemeses by seeing their replies underneath their posts. and there are even special filter browser extensions that some crafty folks employ for this purpose. not sure why it is still not enabled automatically. (my guess it must be not easy to implement, prolly due to everything shadowban-related being handled server-side)

2. remove new followers notification from the "activity" feed. or at least make them auto-removable if the new follower is not following you anymore. similarly to the way a forum message gets removed or altered in your activity feed, if you erase or edit it up on the forum. and maybe introduce a limit of max new follows that you can add per day (if it not already there, similar to the limit of max 400 total follows)

the rationale for this change is that the existing system allows everyone to leave an "i was here" graffiti on anyone else's user page. or even massively spam them on an industrial scale to get attention and followers. and it can be quite misleading too, since you can immediately unfollow, but they don't know it, so they may feel honored and follow you back. as there is no way to see the list of your followers. you can only see if any particular account follows you in the user api, which most people don't know how anyway.

@thibault @Toadofsky @anonmod
thanks for your attention! peace out

@FrozenFractals said in #1:

@ thibault @ Toadofsky @ anonmod
thanks for your attention! peace out
Don't ping mods. If the thread is interesting, there is high chance of getting a reply from mods

Your friend should use lichess.org/appeal. If they don't get another chance then there's probably a strong reason for it.

@FrozenFractals said in #1:

1. make a shadowbanned account's posts and messages readable to their followers.

This is how it partly works. When chat restrictred person is followed by another user and has followed them back, they can have an inbox conversation like there were no sanctions.
Making forum posts readable to followers makes no sense - it will be an off-topic conversation if the followers answer to something others cant read. Needless to say that followers could quote them and make it readable for everyone - defeats the purpose of the chat ban.

and correspondingly an option to ignore your blacklist. that is hiding any public messages (in chats and the forum) of the accounts that you block (which might also include the moddy mods, unless they turn on the mod flag on their post).

I will not turn the mod-flag on my response because what I write here displays my personal opinion and it does not mirror the opinion of whole team. I am not speaking officially for lichess.
Anyways, that is a suggestion I agree with.
Currently blocking prevents from getting paired in the pool and from having private conversations - public user activity in arena-chat and forum is still visible.

2. remove new followers notification from the "activity" feed.
   Can only imagine that removing from activity feed if they unfollow has to be stored somewhere in the data and that for all accounts - so much space required.

Last but not least: please do not ping mods. We do read forum on daily basis on our own.

yeah, this was a little bit random of me, i agree.

Don't ping mods.

didn't know there was such a rule. thank you for telling me about its existence. i thought it was more akin to a personal opinion, such as "don't flood the forum with nonsense", rather than a general chat etiquette guideline.

my only concern was a way to propose some site mechanics and moderation-related changes and attract enough attention of the people who are in charge, but without making it devolve into another ultra-toxic "mod-psychosis" thread. that is why i didn't even put the word "proposals" in the title as i initially wanted. so much for trying to control the uncontrollable i guess, but i digress..

Can only imagine that removing from activity feed if they unfollow has to be stored somewhere in the data and that for all accounts - so much space required.

an unfollow action would simply trigger changing the user activity feed (removing the recent follow notification, if there is any), the way a follow action already does, when it creates one. so no extra space on the server would be needed, compared to what it is already there. only one additional server-side subroutine.