Say you are using WeeChat as your IRC client and an IRC channel you use is regularly inundated with annoying noise due to messages sent by a user (or bot). You could use /ignore to filter out the messages entirely, but when other people interact with this user, you will be confused as to what they are talking about and why the conversation is moving in a certain direction. In essense, you are missing context.
A better solution is to censor this user’s messages, such that you don’t have to read the actual content, while also being informed of the fact that they posted something in the chat and therefore it is likely that people will be responding to their message.
Here’s a WeeChat trigger command you can use to set this up:
/trigger addreplace censor_NICK modifier weechat_print "${tg_tag_nick} == NICK" "/(.*)/${tg_prefix}\t${color:darkgray}[censored]/"Replace NICK in the above command with the nick of the user in question.
Say you face the following scenario:
<cat> I like milk!
<rat> cat: I don't like you!
<monkey> BANANA BANANA BANANA
<cat> what about bananas?If you use /ignore monkey, here’s what the chat would look like:
<cat> I like milk!
<rat> cat: I don't like you!
<cat> what about bananas?It looks as if <cat> is asking <rat> about bananas, which is entirely different from what is going on.
If you use the above trigger, here’s what the chat would look like:
<cat> I like milk!
<rat> cat: I don't like you!
<monkey> [censored]
<cat> what about bananas?This makes it clear that <monkey> posted some message, and gives you enough context to guess that <cat> is probably replying to <monkey> and not to <rat>.
See WeeChat’s wiki page for Triggers (indexable mirror) for more.