Ignore and Buddy Function Explained?

[RainyHigh]

I want to access the ignore button, I accidentally added them as a buddy first.

Does the person being ignored or buddies get any kind of notification?

Also may I please ask someone what each function does?  (Buddy vs Ignore)

I tried to search for a topic here but didn't find one.

If someone could point me in the right direction that would be awesome.

[Kakihara]

Well putting someone on your buddy list will highlight their name in the list of people online as well as I think it will give you a notification when they are on depending on how you have everything set up.  But it mainly just makes an easy list to click on or to highlight their name mainly.  The ignore list will block the person from PMing  you as well as it will hide their forum messages from you so you won't see them unless you click on to show the message.  I'm not sure if the ignore list does anything beyond that.  I don't think it gives the person a notice but I think it may notify them that they can't send you a message?  But I'm not 100 percent on that one.

[Oniya]

Neither the 'Buddy' nor the 'Ignore' list give any sort of notification.  As Kakihara said, the 'Buddy' list just highlights their name in the 'Who's Online' list (it also adds a visual indicator to the green 'Online' indicator near their avatar.)

The Ignore list has more functionality. 

1) it hides the person's posts from you with a little message that says 'You are ignoring this person' - there's an option to read the post anyways.
2) it allows you to block their PMs.  It doesn't quite do this automatically - there's an additional step to take in your profile.  Go to Modify Profile, then Personal Messaging, and you'll see an entry for 'Receive Personal Messages from...'   Set that to 'All Members except those on my Ignore list.

If they try to send you a message, they'll get a notification that you are not receiving PMs.  Most people take the hint at that point.  If you want to ensure that they don't attempt to contact you in other ways (posting to threads you're in, Discord, etc.), Staff recommends the following:

1) Write up a simple message to them, saying 'I do not wish any further contact with you, on or off Elliquiy.'
2) In the CC field, add the name of any staffer.
3) Proceed to add them to your Ignore list and update your messaging preferences if needed.

As always, Staff is available for any assistance you might need in dealing with problems.

[RampantDesires]

There's this Handy Tutorial Here which as far as I know is pretty accurate. With helpful screen shots on what screens should look like along the way.

[RainyHigh]

Thank you all for explaining it! And I feel smooth in the brain that I didn't search the Tutorials forum! Thank you again, and I will go read up some more.

[RedPhoenix]

Now I'm curious. Is the "this person didn't get your PM" message the same if they have someone on ignore versus if they just have PMs turned off?

[Oniya]

It is the same, which is why in this post we make the offer of checking for people to see if it's a global setting or a deliberate one.

In my years here, I've seen maybe two cases where it wasn't a deliberate one.

[RedPhoenix]

Oh, thanks. I had always assumed if someone I put on ignore PMs me it tells them that explicitly, good to know!

[Vekseid]

It will tell them if they  attempt to  pm you.

[Oniya]

It will tell them if they  attempt to  pm you.

It doesn't say 'This member is ignoring you.'  Only that 'This member is not receiving PMs'.

And actually - I've just discovered that you can use the 'Buddy' list as sort of a 'whitelist' to only allow Buddies (and Admins/Staff) to PM you.  Again, you'd set that feature just like using the 'Ignore' list as a blacklist as described above. 

PMing is such an important feature in RP boards that most people use the least restrictive setting they can get away with.