In a discussion titled “‘Unmentioning’ in Discourse” under the Feature category, Decorbuz proposed implementing Twitter’s new “unmention” feature — which lets users remove themselves from mentions — to reduce toxicity. codinghorror questioned the need, noting Discourse already offers muting at topic, category, and user levels. Decorbuz clarified that muted topics still allow clickable mentions that reveal user cards, unlike Twitter’s feature, which lets users “leave” a tweet and remove their tag. maiki asked for clarification on how hiding user cards benefits users, noting the feature’s likely intent to mitigate abuse. seanblue countered that even if mentions were non-clickable, users could still be found via search, suggesting private profiles as a better solution. osioke added that users can flag posts for staff to edit out mentions, affirming the community’s openness to the idea while highlighting existing workarounds. The thread explores whether Discourse needs a native “unmention” tool or if current features suffice.
In what way does this functionality not already exist in Discourse? Right now today you can mute a topic, you can mute a category, you can even mute individual people.. can you be much more specific, provide examples that are Discourse specific?
Well, if your username was mentioned in a topic that you muted, it can still be clicked and will pull up your user card.
With the feature that Twitter is introducing, it allows you to “leave” a tweet and “untag” any mentions of you. Admittedly, Twitter could’ve worded it better.
When I read about features like this I open my mind to the various forms of abuse it is addressing; I have to imagine, because I don’t have a Twitter account, and therefore am not directly exposed to the behavior they are attempting to adjust.
Okay, with that in mind: what is the purpose of hiding the user card? Does the user card on Twitter offer vital information or a menu of options to interact with the user? Please lay out for me how this benefits the “unmentioned”.
If an “unmention” feature existed that let you remove the mention from a specific post, your username would still be there. So even if it wasn’t clickable, people could still easily search for you and pull up your profile anyway. If you’re that concerned about people pulling up your user card or finding your profile in general, perhaps you should set your profile to private.
You can also flag it for staff to edit your mention out too.
We are not saying that your suggestion is not welcome though, we are sharing commentary on ways we currently give this as a solution in Discourse. Thank you for sharing.