Those of you who regularly comment at American Thinker have noticed that there are a few people who comment not to debate topics, but simply to be obstreperous and offensive.  They are disruptive but, subject to a few exceptions, they aren't obscene, threatening, or unduly offensive.  They're just...obnoxious.

One of the ways to deal with obnoxious people is to ignore them, but that can be difficult.  They sit in the middle of the comments like a garish light, drawing attention to themselves and distracting from what we hope will be a civil exchange of ideas.

Fortunately, our commenting software offers a way for individuals to stop seeing designated people's comments in their own comment feeds.  Using this personal option means that unpleasant people who nevertheless don't violate the rules can still have their say, and interact with those who choose to talk with them, but not everyone must suffer their presence.  I've listed below the steps to take.

(1) If you want to block someone from your view, float your cursor over that person's name and look to the right for the little down arrow next to that person's name:

Click on that down arrow, and you'll see that you have the choice of Flagging or Blocking the person:

Click on Block, and that person vanishes from the conversation that you see:

Indeed, he will have vanished forever from your view.  (By the way, David N Sharpe, I did not actually block you.  This was just by way of example.)

Blocking someone is an extreme step.  However, if that person is a chronic burr in your saddle, making it impossible for you to enjoy debate with reasonable people (including those with whom you disagree), blocking may be the answer.

As a reminder, when it comes to the rules, the software will automatically flag certain words associated with personal insults, obscenities, and racism.  These comments get held for review, something we try to do multiple times a day.  People who traffic in crude personal insults, obscenities, vulgarisms, threats, or other similarly offensive communications will be banned permanently.

Image: Cyberbullying by freepik.