Abstract: An approach for selectively blocking responses from members in a conversation thread, such as an email message or an instant messaging session. A first member in a conversation thread receives notification that one or more other members are reading the thread or typing responses and the first member can selectively block the one or more other members from posting responses until the first member has posted a response or until the first member manually unblocks the one or more other members. A member that has been blocked in the conversation thread can send a request to whoever blocked them to be allowed to post a response in the thread.