Grizzledoldman wrote:
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.
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.