On your own profile, under “Who can send me messages”

Blocking deals with one person. This deals with everybody at once — it decides who is allowed to send you a message in the first place.

Open your own profile and look below your details, near the Keep my profile private switch. There are three answers:

Any member

Anyone on Script 360 can write to you. This is how every account starts, and it is what most members leave it on — the Directory exists so writers can find each other, and a site where nobody can be written to is a directory of dead ends.

Only these members

Choose this and you can tick who gets through:

• Members I have shared a screenplay or idea with — anyone you have invited to read something of yours, or whose request to read one of your screenplays you approved. People you already have a working relationship with.
• Industry members — members on an Industry account.

Tick both if you like; they add up rather than narrowing each other. More groups will appear here as we add them.

No one

Nobody can send you a new message at all.

Three things this does not do

It does not close messages you have already received. The setting is only asked when somebody starts a new message. Anyone you are already talking to can still reply, and so can you. Narrowing this is saying “no more strangers”, not “the person I am already writing to should now be talking to a wall”. If you do want a particular message to stop, block that member.

It does not stop Script 360 staff. We can always reach you about your account.

It is not the same as your email settings. This decides whether a message can reach you at all. Whether we email you about the messages you do get is a separate switch, under Email Notifications in your account menu. You can have messages without the emails, or the emails without opening the site — they are different questions.

What somebody else sees

Nothing, beyond the absence of an envelope on your profile and your Directory card. If they reach the box another way they are told you are not currently accepting messages, which says nothing about why.