Ability to block other users
Here's my current vision for implementing blocks (in the spirit of protective force). The hope is that this will empower users to protect themselves and others from people not participating in good faith, in a decentralized way that doesn't require administrator intervention.
There would be an option to make the block either private or public:
A private block secretly prevents the other user from seeing your empathy requests or directly messaging you. (They would not receive any explicit notice that you have privately blocked them and they are still able to view your profile.)
A public block also prevents them from directly messaging or seeing the empathy requests of anyone in your network more closely connected to you than to them. Users connected equally closely to both of you (e.g. a close connection of yours who is in turn a close connection of the blocked user), will see a warning symbol next to their name, with further explanation on their profile--the blocker is required to provide a brief, public explanation of the reason for the block for this purpose. The blocked user, their group hosts, and all their direct connections will be notified of the block and the reason (so the latter can likewise publicly block them if they choose, which could result in their effectively losing access to the platform).
Ideally, a public block would be a last resort, after attempting dialogue via direct messages or otherwise. But that would be left to the blocker's discretion.
See also: Aims and Means, "Roles" (users gain privileges as they connect and verify their identity), Solicit empathy feedback?
Tim Huegerich · Wed 7 Sep 2022 8:14PM
I'm currently envisioning: