I may have stated the idea a little wrong. I don't want to pay to eliminate my being able to hear Shouts. I want to pay (if necessary) to be able to /ignore someone completely. Considering that "just /ignore them" is something that every Staff member uses to diffuse "drama", I think being able to get around that is wrong, especially if you can pay to circumvent it. That's what I meant by the "rich enabled" part. I'm not WANTING to pay for that addition, I'm just WILLING to pay for it. Having this command / right / privilege should not be Rank-based, since most "drama" doesn't care what rank someone is. Considering that all /ignore lists get reset every time there is a server reboot, it's not like you would be able to never hear from someone again. But for that 1-2 hour time span that they are going to act like an absolute troll-y moron... I completely agree, Shouts of "Hey, we're having a dance party at xxxx, PM for TP" or "We're having a contest between A and B, use xxxx portal" are a completely legit reason why someone would need to broadcast to everyone presently online. However... "I love lotttooooooooo" or "xxxx, would you marry me?!?!?!?" a few times within 2 minutes is just being a jerk because they have the money to bug everyone. If the /ignore function worked for Shouts, I'd just add them to my list as soon as they did the exact same message the 2nd or 3rd time. Problem solved from my end, Staff can give their mandated 3-17 warnings of "please don't Spam", and we can all continue stacking blocks in different ways. Want another way to get rid of Shout Spam? After a successful Ban Appeal, the Appealee can't use Shout for 3 months >:} There would be people that would never be allowed to use Shouts again (no, I have no idea if that is possible, but which idea sounds better? *grin*) [Yes, this was rhetorical sarcasm. Not a serious suggestion, unless...]
I think I agree with you more than I thought. After re-reading your posts a few times to see where we might disagree, I was hard pressed to find a clear cut answer. Instead of writing one of my normal 12 paragraph posts, I'll get right to the point. I think a possible solution would be: If we /ignore someone, it should include their shouts. I can completely agree and get behind this. We are ignoring the person for a reason, and they shouldn't be able to circumvent that.
I agree with what people like @Emau have said, that if /ignore is used it should ignore their shouts as well, however I think we also need to ban the spamming of shouts.
Again, If we allow the ignoring of people's shouts, it will just encourage ignoring shouts. Let's be honest how many times have you ignored someone, and then they used a shout to get around the ignore? I hardly see that many shouts. A shout is a shout, it is meant to be heard by everyone on.
"Let's be honest how many times have you ignored someone, and then they used a shout to get around the ignore?"
Well, if someone's being annoying in general then I would just ignore them to not see it. Often enough people wouldn't know they're being ignored. It's not like all /ignores are because you got into some kind of argument. There are plenty of other reasons to ignore people. And yeah, it has happened to me that someone I ignored was using shout to say stuff. Not to me, but in general. When I /ignore someone I want EVERYTHING of his to be invisible to me.
Ignoring the sarcasm, I also agree with the /ignore command to include Shouts from that person. I have had someone I was ignoring start using the Shout system to ask why I was ignoring them. It's not a problem for everyone, but that doesn't mean it should be allowed or encouraged.
What exactly has Taylor not answered? Shout spam should be banned, like all other chat spam - and when we ignore someone, we should not have to see anything from them just because they are paying for it. Also, you have yet to give a clear cut answer to my question as well:
The basis of a shout is for the entire server to hear your message. That way if people who are not global, let's say, can see your message. It is similar to the Alert System, except for normal players like you and me.
If it's similar to the Alert system then you should be able to /ignore users and not see their shouts, as you can /ignore the staff members issuing the alerts and not see the alerts (Generally not a wise idea but would reduce spam from alert-based events).
Thank you for that excellent answer. The only thing we seem to differ on is that I (along with others) do not feel we should be required to see anything from users we choose to ignore. My threshold usually is when one player has the only messages in a whole page of chat - or they seem to not be able to type more than one word per post - or excessive trolling (useless or those that should be taken to private) messages. There are also many of us that believe that spam shouts should follow the same rules as other chat rules and be banned.
If shouts didn't cost money, I wouldn't have a problem with it, but they do. If someone is dumb enough to shout 25 times and spend $25k, management isn't going to argue it because that's an hour of mining out of the economy. If they're spamming shouts, which I very, very rarely see nowadays, it's taking money out of the economy. If they're doing it to harass someone, then it's a different story.
I'd much rather support a suggestion to have /ignore apply to shouts than something as extreme as this.
Wait, you mean... management, like me, when I've been arguing against it on this thread? That sounds an awful lot like putting words in the mouths of people (and yes, before you respond, I am considering myself management, as if there is a rules-based solution to this, it'll be me writing them, and me implementing them). Anyway right now, here's what I'm likely going to put in the moderation guidelines (and perhaps the rules if I'm going to be more specific) - "Excessive shout spam is considered 10 or more shouts in the span of 60 seconds". Note that excessive shout spam is already against the rules, so this isn't making the rule more strict, just more clear.
