Of course even without the ignore feature you do have the option to simply be prejudiced against people at your own discretion lol. But I was assuming you were a member of the forum wanting to converse with others in good faith.
Sure, what gives you the perception I am not? The mere fact that I don't think an ignore-button would be the work of the devil?
I agree, there is no point in arguing in a room full of entrenched positions. If you think that is what Gaf is, I would ask why you are here. If you do not think we are all entrenched in our beliefs, great, argue in good faith and assume the same of others until shown otherwise.
For a second I thought we're making progress
Where exactly did I call the whole of GAF one big room full of entrenched positions? It was an example where someone might find the ignore button useful, not an endorsement to use it at anyone who looks at you funny. Someone once told me if you can't argue for or at least understand a different point of view on an issue, you might not have understood the issue. I've spent enough time on enough forums and message boards to understand that not everyone is happy to converse with others in good faith. That there are those who are just bored and want to cause a reaction, or have nothing better to do than shitpost. And yes GAF mods are pretty quick and good in their responses, which is the reason why I only have one single person on my ignore list (which I think was banned shortly after anyway). But just because nobody stole my wallet for a few years doesn't mean I remove the lock from my door.
No, you should "simply ignore someone" by doing exactly that
... and exactly that is what the ignore button does! Again: I don't see where the fundamental difference lies between someone just not reading someones postings, or clicking a button that automates the process of ignoring someone. Or perhaps that's the issue, that it is a machine doing it? Would you feel better if someone actively skips your postings rather than having an algorithm hide them from a user?
I still will not ever use the feature myself though, just doesn't feel right when I can simply move past the content without taking action to further silence a person.
Clicking the button does not silence the person, everyone else can still read it, right? Maybe we're just arguing over semantics here, but I don't think that hitting ignore is the same as censoring what someone says, since you can't control with the ignore button if other people engage with said person. If you were to ignore anyone in this thread, I could still read it, right? If anything you might actually hurt yourself in an actual debate by hitting ignore too eagerly, as has been pointed out by many.