Chat provides the ability to ignore users. However, it doesn't force everyone else to ignore them. ;) As such, you can still see responses to that user.
It might be nice if "Ignore this user" provided an option to also ignore responses to that user's posts, and potentially all posts with @ignored_user.
I support this. If you have 3-4 "busy" people on ignore and the chat room is busy, you may as well give up on trying to follow the conversation streams and come back later when there's nobody around.
If I have someone on ignore, I don't really give two hoots what they're talking about or if they're saying something interesting or if someone else has said something interesting in response to them. They're on ignore for a reason.
Ehhh I do not really like this idea.
I have ignored users before, but when I see others' comments back to them I decide that I might want to take them out of cherem and actually participate in the discussion.
If I see it going nowhere, then I might put them back into my ignored user list.
Other than that I don't think we should penalize ourselves from seeing other people's sometimes insightful responses to the aforementioned ignored user.
This is a problem with most chat systems, where you see one sided conversations. Luckily SO cuts down on the confusion with the @username format.
I oppose blocking the messages from a user who is replying to a blocked user, as you may be missing a good message. After all, you're not blocking the replier. What I propose as a compromise is a way to highlight that the replier is replying to a message from a user who you have blocked. One way of doing this might be a red strike through in the @reply. For example:
Resorath:
@imajerkI don't think we should revive Hitler and make him our president.
(Except the @name would be red)
