It takes two to argue. If Member A chose not to rise to Member B's bait, there would be no argument. A little self-control would end the flame wars very early. Of course then you'd have to also persuade all of A and B's friends not to pitch in to fuel the flames. You can have many reasons for an ignore idea, but the idea it will punish anyone by making them feel like a pariah is seems like a non-starter to me. For that to take, the person would have to be sent a little ebot message saying, "You have annoyed Member A's and therefore Member A will now ignore you." That works as punishment only if Member B cares what Member A thinks....and clearly Member B does't or Member B would not be flaming Member A in the first place. More probably Member B knows Member A's hot button and will find a way to press it with or without an ignore button. Many times the administrators aren't told about a flame fest until well into a discussion. Very rarely are flame wars entitled: "I will now flame Member A." Everyone sits around waiting for the moderators to notice and then they whine that not enough is done about flames because they never bothered to call in the firefighters (I guess that's becasue they'd rather watch the show than be considered a "snitch"). Will this be solved by an ignore button? Well, you already have one. You can get off the thread and unclick the notify button. I guess that's a little low tech but it works. I don't have anything against the ignore button. But a button won't change human nature. At least I hope I'm well out of this world before they develop a button that does.