Is there a difference and if so, what it is? And where do you block people? I was only aware of the Ignore function...
The popup menu that comes when you hover over your own id on top of the page has a menu item called "People you ignore". There you get the list of all people you ignore. At bottom of that list is a checkbox that reads "Block above member(s) totally". What its net effect is, I can't say; I'm curious myself to know about it.
OK, then I think they are just synonyms, and Baron used the word Blocking because some people are more familiar with that expression than Ignoring... There was a thread a year ago where people requested that they could moderate their own thread, thus they could Block certain posters from posting in it. I don't think that feature was implemented, instead we have private threads, invitation only...
Clicking "ignore" on a member's nick, or going to the "People you ignore" menu and typing the member's name manually but NOT clicking "Block this member totally" yield the same results: All of the content from the member you have ignored vanishes from your feed. If the member replies in your thread, you see "Ignored Member" in your feed, and on forum thread screens. You will not see any other content beyond this unless you take further action (like logging out to see what they wrote - which defeats the point of ignoring them). If you check the box that states "Block This Member Totally", then all of the first part applies AND the member you blocked can no longer see YOUR content at all. All they see is "Ignored Member" as well. So the main difference between ignoring and blocking is that ignoring allows them to see you despite you ignoring them. The latter allows neither to see each other's content. Of course, they can just log out to see your content, or use the forum menu and still post to your thread, they just can't see the content through normal use. Personally, ignoring and blocking is the best way to remove a member from having anything to do with you. Hope this helps.