I am going to give you a clue, bub.
(Climbing on soapbox)
This software - despite your perceptions that it lacks the bells and whistles of Facebook or MyButt such as the exalted BOZO filter is pretty damn good. It allows a user to know when he is pinged and can follow threads of discussions within posts to their ultimate end.
There is little or no canned forum software that does that. Been there, done that.
The support required behind the scenes to monitor posts and signups is enough to drive most adults slowly nuts. Been there, done that.
Customizing the software to allow bozo filters would add a layer of complexity that I expect the current management has already investigated and dropped.
People who complain about stuff they know nothing of are always an amusement. This is your lucky day, you are almost on my auto-bozo filter.
Never been on a site with an ‘ignore’ button, how does that work?
‘People who complain about stuff they know nothing of are always an amusement.’
Now you’re an expert on what I know and don’t know? Nah...
You're absolutely right. I really like the way FR works, and there's just nothing like out out there. I wish more forums would use their stuff (if they even make it available). One of the bigger weaknesses with canned forum software is that lack of ability to track replies on threads.
Just the ping feature makes FR better than any other forum I post to. Canned forums suck.
Just to add another perspective, I wrote my own bozo filter code for the forum I used to run on my site and it actually cut WAY back on the amount of moderating I had to do. The code was fairly simple to write and integrate into my existing forum code (it helped that I wrote the forum code myself), and it prevented so many of the long, thread derailing fights that everyone, including me, enjoyed the forums a lot more. Of course if Jim and staff didn’t create this forum themselves, adding a bozo filter would probably be a bigger pain in the rectum. It can be done though, and in the end makes the mods jobs easier...or that was my experience anyway.