I can see ignore overriding following of a tag. I do want people to own what they post and share however, so I don't want ignore to override that. However, I do not want folks like tarekezombie ruining a tag for everyone. That doesn't make sense. I will make the change tomorrow. I plan on rolling out a pretty major update tomorrow, and I will add this functionality to that update. Ignore will ignore the user, even if you follow the tag. So be it! :)
Is there a minimum standard the members of Hubski be held to?
The great thing, I think, is we can decide that for our personal feeds individually, without the need of a disclaimer like "spamming will not be allowed" in the about page. The site provides the option for us to say "spam is what we make of it." * * * riemannman's question about hate speech is, I think, a harder one. Admin had to deal with inappropriate content before. I think it's a more legal territory than anything else. Doesn't the US -- btw, I'm not a US citizen -- has laws against discrimination? If someone is posting hate speech, isn't the best solution to flag them?at what point to we say "this person is a spammer"?
- The great thing, I think, is we can decide that for our personal feeds individually, without the need of a disclaimer like "spamming will not be allowed" in the about page. The site provides the option for us to say "spam is what we make of it."
That's my goal. However, I am going to get a bit involved if spammy users are getting in the way of content discovery. I don't want to get into the business of playing whack-a-mole with spammers. But, if a user is ignored by a large number of people, they might not have an equal presence in the external posts feed. For those of us that have been around, we've been able to ignore these users as they have come, however, for new Hubskiers, their presence could be a nuisance and really impede discovery of good content. For that reason, at some point I'll probably leverage the ignoring of the current user base, and make a large 'ignored by' count cause posts to more quickly fall through the external post feed.
As to your question about hate speech. The only type of speech that is banned in the US is specific threats against people and inciting violence. I can say, "I hate hubskiers, and I wish someone would kill them." But I can't say, "I hate thenewgreen, and I'm going to kill him." There are no laws against any type of racist, offensive or violent speech that doesn't make a serious threat to anyone in particular like you might find in many European countries (like for example their laws against Holocaust denial). Free speech is one of the holiest things here. What is it like in Brazil? What type of things are permissible there?
Brazil has anti-discrimination laws which prohibits discrimination against Age, Race, Color, National origin, Disability, Religion, Sex, Marital status, Political affiliation, Pregnancy, Citizenship. Note that sexual orientation is not in there. It's funny we're having this discussion right now, because earlier today, I saw a video on YT about a congresswoman, a catholic missionary, who was voting against a bill to include sexual orientation. The bill, I'm sad to say, didn't pass. I'd have to check it, but my feelings are that you couldn't hold the "Death to all Hubskiers" flag here. There's a lot of violence, both physical and verbal, towards all kinds of minorities: black people, poor people, women, indians, but I'm tempted to say that's more of a concealed, though not isolated, occurence. So, in general, I'd say racism -- all kinds of -isms -- is frowned upon, it's illegal, but it still happens. EDIT: Oh, my, I just remembered! The other day, this guy was arrested for publishing discriminatory content on the web. He'll be charged for racial prejudice and pedophilia.