Posting it here for reach since it got literally 0 traction on the suggestions forum and I feel the sentiment needs to be judged on this one.

More often than not, the reasons people ignore other players are so petty that I do not even wish to get into them(maybe use the comments section). We all just know it is common and mostly for the tiniest of transgressions.

Voobly is arguably the best community for the best game of all time.

Even though there are thousands of players over at Steam etc., the lobby system isn't as cool and simple as Voobly's(matchmaking is different), they have limited map choices(they are forced to play random maps in a pooled system), the pathing is still questionable, you actually need a 21st century pc to be able to run the game at all, and not everybody can pay(no matter how small the amount). In comparison, Voobly is highly customizable, has virtually unlimited map choices, can mostly run on older/newer/whateverthef*** kinda pcs, and is free. It still obviously isn't perfect but what in life is really?

The Voobly community is still small and our numbers have only dwindled over time. You play enough games and you can literally remember who's who, especially a couple of hundred or so points within your rating range. When people ignore others, it makes the community even smaller than it already is. I've noticed most players, for whatever reasons, will never host games but instead just join games others have hosted. As an example, say there are 5 or 6 people who often host your choice of map within your desired rating range(and this one is an imp. point since it's another limiter) regularly in a timeframe you usually play in - say just 2 or 3 of them block you for whatever reason and you're left with just 3-4(who can also be offline) hosts whose games you can join. Of course, you can always host your own rooms too but time is of the essence for many of us and seeing room after room with 4, 5, 6, 7 etc. players in them, jumping at the opportunity to join them only to see you have been ignored by the host is not a pleasant sight. That was just one example. Human beings are emotional creatures and on a long enough timescale more people are going to ignore you, no matter how nice or cool or skilled you are. That's just how we are. There will come a point when enough people have ignored you that when you enter the lobby(especially on low numbers days), you may not be able to get a decent game. And if you host your own room, the players you've ignored as payback(that's usually how this goes, reciprocal ignoring) cannot join your rooms either and in the end you waste a lot of time getting a game at all. Another incentive for creating stupid new accounts(defeats the whole purpose of ignoring jbtw) for a lot of you folks. It's stuff like this that frustrates people and with time they end up losing interest and completely quitting Voobly(one of the contributors to the dwindling numbers over the years). It also erects a kind of a barrier for the newer players because they don't know how to behave initially and being ignored for their little misdemeanors(eg. spam joining a room you were kicked from) left and right, they are discouraged from getting into the game at all - such a toxic cancel culture(yeah, that's what I call it) stifles the community's growth. None of us want Voobly to eventually die a slow death.

Having said all this yes, there are also legitimate reasons people ignore each other eg. if someone was being a real pr1ck/toxic, cheating or known rage-quitters etc.

So, to get around a lot of this, I propose a 'limited' ignore by default. The idea is that since we are impulsive creatures, the first option to ignore a player after right clicking their names should by default be a temporary(say 30 or 60 days) ignore. It is punitive and should be enough to serve this purpose. After the lapse of this temporary period, the player is automatically unignored so as to keep the community still open. Oh and if you had super-legitimate reasons to ban someone, perhaps there should be a separate option to block a profile forever but for that you have to either present your case to an admin, or maybe a permanent block option could be available without admin approval but only in the deepest, darkest corners of Voobly(eg. you'll have to open the Voobly browser, browse to the specific tab in settings where such an option is hidden in fine print and then from there you can block someone only after typing in the exact spelling of their profile). If the blocking was truly warranted you will 100% jump all the hoops. If not, your brains will decide it's not worth the effort and call it a day or just ignore(temporary).

The idea is is to maximize the incentives for this community's growth and minimize the barriers to entry. I hope the admins of the site realize this. Together we can keep Voobly thriving forever.

Best,
Promisetheus.

Just host your own games and be as selective as you like with ignoring. I found from doing this that over time your games will get higher and higher quality and good players will be more likely to come back. I have no problems in MSL filling lobbies for common maps like BF lord etc

The problem with filling rooms is more about time of the day and day of the week. The ignoring is more a problem with other people abusing the default permanent ignore feature to render the community smaller vs you or me personally being judicious with the usage of the feature.

Anyway, currently 5 voted for and 5 against. 3 people voted for at least a 'temporary' ignore so the total votes against the permanent ignore equals to 5+3=8, vs 5 favoring the current permanent ignore status quo. While this is a small sample size, I think it is fairly representative of the general sentiment around this topic. I certainly hope the mods give this a thought and at least slightly tweak the system if possible.