SUGGESTION: IGNORABLE THREADS

author=Shinan
Subscriptions could solve this. Just subscribe to what you want to read and never visit the forum/community tab at all! You could even make a thread (that you subscribe to) called "Recommend me threads to subscribe to" so you don't have to browse yourself to find new threads and risk ending up on the forums. Instead other people can provide you links to interesting threads. (and if you trust them you click the links and subscribe)

That's kind of forcing someone to ignore most of the forum to avoid a small minority of threads. Like, in my case 99% of the content isn't a problem, but there's one or two occasional threads that pop up that, in times when I didn't have as good a handle on my issues, I'd have trouble avoiding. (And then would probably get drama-y in. :( )

author=Hexatona
If this is about Mafia, I thought that Liberty was trying to making it so that Mafia threads would not be bothering people anymore, but her latest experiment seems to have failed - so rest assured, she's working on it?

It's more about some of the controversial threads; I feel like an ignore function would help people really subscribe to the "don't like, don't read" philosophy, since there wouldn't be a constant reminder in the latest posts area going, "Hey! Hey, look at me! Don't you want to see everyone's opinion on this topic and maybe squabble with people who have the Wrong Opinion? C'mon, it'll be great!"

I'm not sure if it gets across to people who don't have the kind of issues I (and apparently a few other people here) do, but it can be exhausting trying to avoid this stuff, and I've occasionally had to just stop checking places for a while because otherwise the temptation is too great. I really feel like being able to put that mess out of sight completely could cut down a lot on the "toxic" atmosphere the kids are talking about these days.

author=kentona
Thinking outside the box, then, the solution is obvious: increase the percentage of content that is a problem, so that Shinan's solution is relatively more appealing. What would be a good goal? 25% 45%? 70%?

I think we'd have to post a LOT more to hit that goal.

author=Shinan
So the only two ways I see of actually ignoring threads one wants to ignore is to either do the subscription thing I suggested (thus avoiding all possible threads that need ignoring) or just not read threads that might seem uninteresting.

This isn't "threads that seem uninteresting" this is "threads that cause personal problems," whether "I can't not look away from the trainwreck" or "I can't keep myself from slapfighting" or "every time I see this title, I am reminded of something upsetting."

It's mildly annoying to see, say, a bajillion mafia posts, or a bunch of replies on some obscure technical feature that doesn't apply to me. That's not hard to ignore the normal way. But certain subjects, or threads that I've already gotten het up in, are exponentially more troublesome, especially on bad days. If they're no longer visible to me, I can go about my posting as usual without the temptation to go wade into the muck or the exhaustion of beating my mentally ill brain into submission.

It's "I need not to see this," rather than "I don't care."