Blocking

THAT is fascinating Miki. So blocking someone is largly meaningless thus pointless. Which brings us full circle to angela's question, why would someone even do it? Though poppet's list seems to answer that question....personal peace of mind.

Woah woah what’s your view on brats??!!

There are two types of blockers. Retroactive and Preemptive.

Retroactive: Those who have had an incident or dealing with someone and for their own sanity or peace of mind, block to minimize interaction or incidental interaction. Some of what Poppet indicates falls in this category.

Preemptive: This can have multiple reasons. As Topeka points out, when a Dom blocks another Dom preemptively (using my own phraseology) it's a weak move. Typically fear induced as if someone will comment on your blog in either a positive or negative way but steal your thunder. There's at least one little dom who does this out of self-preservation on the site, probably more. I personally welcome interaction from other Dominants as it helps me learn.

The other reason for preemptively blocking might be a submissive sees someone who they don't or know they won't align with and they use it as a method of filtering and maintaining a boundary. And I've heard some individuals who are "seeking" use the block to indicate a candidate that they don't find worthy or interested in, so it's like a checkmark (I looked at them but I'm not that into them).

Personal attacks of any kind would earn a block from me

You got it. All blocking does is what's been already written here. That is of some use, of course, but it is not the not the cure all that it was on a site I was moderating some years back.

Said site has since gone into the dust bin of internet history but on it, when a block is thrown there would be not only be no messaging, but in addition neither party could even see the other's forum posts. Both were mutually invisible. A drawback was a disjointed thread flow when one or the other made a point, it could be seen and commented on by uninvolved people and when they comment, but to the blocker-blockee pair, the comment made limited sense. It developed into a low-level cluster fuck over time .

But.. the message-stop has a use. In my first months in here I "met" one of those simians who would not take "No thanks" for an answer. OK, I let it slide and did not ghost the guy, but it got to a point where he lost his temper and even messaged while drunk. I then had to block his (likely) hairy ass to make him leave me alone. I don't like doing that, but E-bullshit like that is when I block-- Also I "reciprocal block", not to say "So there, Buttcrack!" --but I do that in case an individual changes their mind or decides to unblock long enough to send an annoying message-- Now they can't.

So the overall answer is, by and large, there are people who heavily deploy that feature to prove some kind of point to the person they dislike / disagree with, and feel good about themselves in the process.

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I don't know how many have blocked me and I never gave enough of a fuck to count grayed-out stars. After all, If that's what defrosts their freezer, more power to 'em.

I'm not a blocker. In three years, I've only found two worth blocking, and they had lost their minds. If you're sense of reason is still intact, I won't block you. There's still hope.

If someone blocks me, I would at least like to know the reason, assuming that it truely is because I have offended them unknowingly and not simply because they block ALL sub males (in my case) or dom males, or whatever- simply as a matter of course.

I've never agreed with the adage that "it's none of your buisness what other people think of you" and this is why: What other people think of you is a reflection of your impact on them. As someone who tries to be a good person, polite, respectful, caring, considerate, and fair, if I fail in this respect, especially without realizing it, it troubles me- and makes me resolve to be a better person. You have people who are simply jerks, and who couldn't care less if people think they are jerks- and I certainly don't want to be one of those.

Thank you everyone for the replies

I block both before contact, and after, and my blocks are fully inclusive, so doms, subs, switches have been blocked, though a much larger percentage are male identifying subs - persons who would not take no as an answer.

I don’t care if people think I am a little dom, I block people I want no exchange/contact with, those people having outed their horrible views on blogs, forum interaction, chat room activity, or most helpfully on their profile, they get before contact blocks, sometimes after contact blocks. These are mostly people whose politics, life/society views and ethics do not match mine, or what I think is acceptable as a baseline for being a decent human. I block people who have hurt me, or people I care about. I also value my mental and emotional health, and I will protect that over and above all else, blocking can, and has been a useful tool to insure that in the past.

I think in my time here, those I once thought ok, nice or interesting people, those I might have aligned with, even had some involvement or friendship with, who I ended up blocking, among my most disappointing, frustrating and simply sad experiences on here.

Because some people are rude or determined to spam your inbox with messages. Some are very disrespectful and sure you can just ignore the messages but preventing them from being able to send one is also great.