As extra mod to community events i need to be able to tell whos in the instance and manage it when the instance master/owner is away. This current masking of users blocking me to get around my moderation is wrong.

The current implementation of the blocking system is flawed. This may be a good time to consider addressing this as the "Here" Menu would be a perfect use case for the proposed changes.

Issue: When a user blocks you, you can't see them in social. Limited admin tools for Instance Owners can make this an issue. It can also make initiating a vote kick difficult to impossible. It can also create further abuse by allowing someone to spite block people in return for being blocked, target block instance owners and masters or target block world authors. Instance Owners are also not always around, leading to openings for abuse where the lobby doesn't have any realistic courses of action as they may be blocked by the malicious user.

Proposal: Emulate something similar to Discords blocking methodology. Blocking should not hide users from the "Here" menu. If you join an instance with someone who has you blocked, you should be able to tell by looking at the "here" menu. You shouldn't be able to interact with this person, a block should indeed mean a block, but you should be able to tell they're indeed in the lobby. This would remove spite blocking entirely as even if two people block each other, they can still see that they are in the lobby or not so makes it entirely moot. This also wouldn't negate the Instance Owner, world author, or world moderators from taking action as even if they get maliciously blocked, they can still see the person in "Here" and take action as needed.

Gist: Everyone should be able to see blocked users and users who have them blocked via the "Here" menu but not interact with them. This would fix the main crux of the problem.

In my opinion, the fact that you are blocked by someone in an instance, should never be a hidden fact. One could even argue that it should be easier to find out if someone in the instance has you blocked.

It is incredibly disruptive to the social experience to hang out with friends, and have someone in the instance that has you blocked, and you don't realize it, causing confusion and awkwardness for everyone when you try to figure out why the conversation seems disjointed without continuity.

As well, hiding this information from the user harms those who play the game without mods, while those with mods have all the benefits to work around these kinds of situations.

this will additionally just make a larger divide between api tool and client users. as a normal user you literally can't kick or do anything if somone blocks you there's so many ways to exploit this. the only ones able to get around it are client users who are unaffected and people who know how to use vrcx and other log parsing tools to see whose in the instance which isent alot of people. im saying this for everyone who host events or anything that would be a target for bad actors. this is going to be exploited so badly. dont wana follow rules at a event or crash lobby and haras someone just block everyone who can stop or kick you. i really hope this isent in the final version.

Additionally, hiding people in the social list that you have blocked or vice versa is completely pointless, and as this post has indicated is even impractical.

ya i noticed this. all hiding blocked people does is give malicious people more power. like usually its obvious if someone who blocks you is in the lobby when people are talking to nothing. iv seen it far more often used by malicious people to get away with stuff for longer by blocking the owner or like admins in events. like i understand removing it from obvious view even if i dont agree with they. but removing it everywhere only helps bad people. like malicious people can already still see you if you block them usually.