User Blocking
Lets a member block someone, after which neither of them sees the other anywhere in the app or on your website.
This is a background feature, and it is added for you. Place any feature that shows what members post or who they are — a feed, chat, forums, groups, the directory, profiles, photos, reviews, posts or search — and User Blocking appears on the Background tab on its own. Remove the last of them and it goes away again. You do not drag it in, and you cannot take it out while your app has member content, because the App Store requires it.
Before you start
Section titled “Before you start”| Plugin | None. Blocking is built into Memberside |
| Endpoint group | User Blocking |
| Plan | Every plan |
The builder switches the User Blocking group on when the feature is added, the same way placing any feature turns on the groups it needs. That switch is also what starts the hiding on your site: with the group off, a block is recorded but nothing is hidden. Updating the plugin never starts hiding content on its own.
It needs no chat plugin. Blocking used to exist only inside Chat and Chat (Better Messages), and only stopped messages. It now works with any combination of member plugins, or none.
Add it to your app
Section titled “Add it to your app”- Place a feature with member content, such as News Feed or Directory.
- Open the Background tab and check that User Blocking is there.
- Click it to review its two settings.
To give members a screen of their own for the people they have blocked, also place Blocked Users.
Settings
Section titled “Settings”| Setting | What it does | Default |
|---|---|---|
| Warn when a blocked member is in a conversation | Opening a group conversation, forum topic or group that contains someone the member blocked asks them to Leave or Proceed first | On |
| Show Blocked members in Settings | Adds a Blocked members row to the Settings screen, opening the blocked list | On |
The Block action itself has no switch. App Review checks for it, so it is always present.
With Show Blocked members in Settings off and no Blocked Users screen placed, members can still block but have nowhere to see or undo it. Keep at least one of the two.
What your members see
Section titled “What your members see”Blocking someone
Section titled “Blocking someone”Block sits in the ⋯ menu on:
- posts and comments in a feed, and BuddyPress activity items and their comments
- a member’s profile header
- forum topics and replies
- a chat conversation
- someone else’s note, photo, or photo comment
- reviews and review replies, including Site Reviews (not the site owner’s response)
- the member card you open from a pin on the members map
It never appears on the member’s own content. Tapping it asks first: Block Sam? “You won’t see each other’s profiles, posts or messages, and they won’t be told.”
What changes after a block
Section titled “What changes after a block”Both members disappear from each other, whoever did the blocking:
- Opening the other’s profile shows This profile is unavailable. The member who blocked sees “You blocked this member” with Unblock instead.
- Their posts, comments and replies leave feeds, forums and group discussions.
- They leave the directory, search, followers and friends lists, and the members map.
- One-to-one messages stop. The member who blocked keeps the conversation, with a banner and Unblock where the reply field was. For the member who was blocked, the conversation is gone.
- Notifications the other one would cause stop arriving.
- Follows and friendships between them, and pending friend requests, are removed. Unblocking does not restore them.
The blocked member is never told. Nothing they see says “blocked”: the other member’s profile reads as unavailable, the same as a deleted account would.
The same hiding applies on your website. It does not apply in wp-admin, where you moderate.
Group conversations, forum topics and groups
Section titled “Group conversations, forum topics and groups”A member cannot remove someone else from a shared space, so blocking hides that person’s messages there rather than the space itself.
With Warn when a blocked member is in a conversation on, opening a group conversation, a forum topic or a group that contains someone they blocked shows a dialog first: “Sam, whom you blocked, is in this conversation.” Leave goes back. Proceed opens it, with each of that person’s messages collapsed to a row reading Message from a member you blocked. Tapping a row shows that one message.
With the setting off, the dialog is skipped and the collapsed rows remain.
Blocking a member from a post, and the Leave or Proceed dialog in a group conversation
record → src/assets/media/user-blocking.mp4
Moderators cannot be blocked
Section titled “Moderators cannot be blocked”Anyone whose role can edit other people’s posts or manage the site’s options — Administrators and Editors, on a standard WordPress site — is exempt in both directions. Block does not appear for them, and nothing is ever hidden from them, so they keep seeing every report and every post they moderate.
A member cannot hide from moderation by blocking a moderator, and a moderator’s view of the community is never thinned out by other members’ block lists.
Blocks made in chat carry over
Section titled “Blocks made in chat carry over”If your site already ran Ultimate Member - Private Messages or Better Messages, members’ existing block lists are imported once, the first time blocking runs. After that the lists stay in step both ways: a block made in the app shows up in the chat plugin, and one made in the chat plugin on your website shows up in the app. Blocks against moderators are skipped on import.
A member can block up to 1,000 others.
Store review
Section titled “Store review”The generated review notes say where Block is reachable in your app, so the reviewer has the answer before they ask.
When it does not work
Section titled “When it does not work”| Symptom | Cause | Fix |
|---|---|---|
| Members can block, but blocked people still appear everywhere | The User Blocking endpoint group is off, so blocks are recorded but nothing is hidden | Enable the endpoints you need |
| Block only affects messages, and the Blocked Users screen cannot load | Your site runs a Memberside version from before User Blocking | Update Memberside |
| There is no Block in a member’s menu | That member is a moderator | Working as intended |
| A blocked member still shows on a page of your website | A page cache served a copy made for someone else | Exclude signed-in members from your page cache, or purge it |
| Unblocking did not bring back a follow or a friendship | Blocking removes them, and unblocking does not restore them | Follow or send the friend request again |
| “You have blocked the maximum number of members” | The member has 1,000 blocks | Unblock someone first |
| No dialog when opening a group conversation with a blocked member | Warn when a blocked member is in a conversation is off | Switch it on |
| The readiness check fails on guideline 1.2 blocking | The app has member content and User Blocking is missing, usually after an import | Add User Blocking from the row’s suggestion |