[Feature]: Blocking Another User

[Joshua8600]

Checked Existing

• I have checked the repository for duplicate issues.

What feature do you want to see added?

I think adding a feature to "block" another user from commenting or liking your posts would be good.

I don't think this needs to apply to just viewing posts or reporting, but definitely all kinds of direct interactions with posts.

I don't think this should apply to moderator/developer accounts, though.

Why do you want to have this feature?

People have commented on Juxt asking about this before. And as a moderator, I often see posts asking other users to no longer comment or like posts by them. So a block feature would help here.

Though I do see this potentially causing other drama. "This person blocked me why?" But I think that's still the lesser evil than someone you really don't want commenting or liking your posts doing so.

Any other details to share? (OPTIONAL)

No response

[ashquarky]

Absolutely required. We will need to work out the exact mechanics of it (e.g. usually on other platforms, blocking DOES prevent them from viewing your posts).

[jonbarrow]

We will need to work out the exact mechanics of it (e.g. usually on other platforms, blocking DOES prevent them from viewing your posts)

Since we don't have threads like platforms such as Twitter do and don't need to worry about the complexity threads brings, I think this should be fine:

• Hide comments on posts a user has made if that user has the viewer blocked (just don't even include it in the response, or if it MUST be in the response (such as for maintaining comment orders or something), replacing the comment content with an empty string and user data with something like "Anon User" or something)
• When trying to interact with a user who has you blocked (viewing their profile, viewing one of their posts, API calls targeting the user, etc.), send an HTTP 403 response. 403 is the correct status code here, as it's documented usage is: The request was valid, but the server refuses action. This may be due to the user not having permission to a resource or needing an account of some sort, or attempting a prohibited action, which falls in line with trying to view a users profile/post who has you blocked
• If you have a user blocked, do what Twitter does and still send the data in responses but hide it client-side unless the user accepts seeing it, but unlike Twitter prevent the blocking user from interacting with the blocked user (IE, can't comment on a blocked users posts)

[ashquarky]

This will be funny to get right in the database. My instinct is "add a field for user settings for users you have blocked" since, like, that's a user setting. If we do that though, suddenly every post query also becomes an aggregate with that user's settings so we can see if the viewer is on their blocklist.
Alternatively, each user settings could track who has the current user blocked, which is nice since the current usersettings are always available in routers anyway, but it would make certain operations like viewing who you've blocked real mucked up.

I guess aggregating the user data is good because then we can also fix the screen_name data duplication thing

[jonbarrow]

This is effectively just the same issue as PretendoNetwork/nex-protocols-common-go#58 but for viewing posts/profiles rather than joining matches, and I think it's best to just solve it the same way here as it is being done there; create a separate "block list" "table" to store the relationships on, and just check that when needed. It's only one extra query, I don't think it's that big of an issue. Pseudocode:

import { Schema, model } from 'mongoose';

const blockListSchema = new Schema({
	user_pid: {
		type: BigInt,
		required: true
	},
	blocked_pid: {
		type: BigInt,
		required: true
	}
});

blockListSchema.index({ user_pid: 1, blocked_pid: 1 }, { unique: true });

const BlockList = model('BlockList', blockListSchema, 'block_lists');

async function getPosts(communityID: string) {
	return [
		{
			pid: 123,
			name: 'UserA',
			content: 'hello world'
		},
		{
			pid: 456,
			name: 'UserB',
			content: 'hello world'
		},
		{
			pid: 789,
			name: 'UserC',
			content: 'hello world'
		},
		{
			pid: 123,
			name: 'UserA',
			content: 'hello world'
		}
	];
}

async function page(request) {
	const posts = await getPosts('123456');
	const blockList = await BlockList.distinct('blocked_pid', { user_pid: request.pnid.pid });
	const filteredPosts = posts.map(post => {
		if (blockList.includes(post.pid)) {
			post.name = 'Blocked User'; // * Or whatever else
			post.content = ''; // * Or whatever else, mark this as hidden instead of changing it idk
		}
	});

	// * Render from filteredPosts
}