Google Chrome, Firefox & Opera Extension

[Tof63]

The new feature is published and will be available when the extension will be validated.
It will allow you to mute a player in games chats, to get rid of toxic players!
(Just click the "mute" icon and and you will no longer see the user's messages)



The documentation is already up to date if you'd like to take a look at it.

https://en.doc.boardgamearena.com/ChromeExtension
https://fr.doc.boardgamearena.com/ChromeExtension

I hope you will enjoy this feature ... and that you won't have to use it too often

[Waspq]

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[GTSchemer]

I think the issue is that it is intended to mute toxic players. Chances are, not all players are toxic.

If more and more players were able to disable chat entirely, then BGA becomes an even less social and friendly environment. At that point, what is the difference to just playing a videogame by yourself, against AI opponents?

Polite chat should be generally acceptable, otherwise we burn our own community down.

[Jellby]

At that point, what is the difference to just playing a videogame by yourself, against AI opponents?

Why does there need to be a difference? Maybe some people would prefer to play against AI, but where can you play all the games you find at BGA against AI opponents? And moreover, which AIs (besides chess, go and solved abstract games) have the quality of (some) human opponents?

Polite chat should be generally acceptable, otherwise we burn our own community down.

Nobody says it's not acceptable. But it is acceptable for users to ignore it too. I find the request for muting the chat (possibly informing other users that you have done so) is reasonable. It does not mean everyone will use it all the time, but some people may choose to use it some times, instead of pasting a post-it on the screen to cover the chat.

[Tof63]

So I tried the extension and I don't understand why the workarounds for muting chat. Is it simply not possible to implement? I would like to mute game chat same way global chat gets muted. Right now I can only mute single person and it shows up in chat which naturally prompts even more chat because people are wondering * is that message.

It is possible to implement, it's just that I don't want to

First reason is that there is already an extension that do that : https://chromewebstore.google.com/detai ... haah?hl=fr
And I prefer not to copy the functionality of existing extensions.

Second reason is that I dislike this feature. I think it's rude to ignore players' messages without warning and without reason, but that's just how I feel, I'd just rather not have someone do that to me.
That's why the extension displays a message in the chat to warn everybody that a player has been muted. It's really a defensive option that I've planned to use only if you've got someone really nasty in front of you.

Edit: also the muted person's chat still makes a sound even though I cannot see messages

I can add a setting to disable sound notifications, but that will disable notifications of all messages, not just those of muted players.
We've reached the limits of what's possible with an extension.

[Waspq]

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[Tof63]

You're welcome.

And contrary to what I said earlier, I've found a way to play a sound only if a non-muted player has sent a message.
So I'm going to publish a new version!

[muttlolz]

Why does the mute button inform the obnoxious player that they have been muted? Isn't this going to make matters worse?

[Tof63]

I'd love to hear other users' opinions on the subject, but personally I think it's more correct to warn the person that there's no longer any point in them sending messages. Even if you're dealing with a rude person, that's no reason not to be rude yourself
I also didn't want it to be too “easy” and be used indiscriminately.
In my mind, the use case is: a player has crossed the line, but I don't want to be punished if I leave the game, so I mute him, finish the game quietly and then report his behavior to bga so that he's the one who gets punished.
Does anyone else have an opinion on this?

[Blacktango]

I agree with Tof, here.
Some people have problems communicating with other people. They don't know they've crossed a line, especially if they're not speaking their native language and are behind a keyboard.
Simply ignoring them won't help them change their behavior (or the way they speak) in the future, and so you or someone else will run into them again and again.

Giving them a chance to know that you feel bad about what they said is the minimum to improve the future situation, imo.