The Gun Counter

Hi,

I received a PM from another member and wanted to send a reply but there was no option allowing me to reply. When I clicked on "Compose Message" to try to send a new PM to that user, I got this notification:

You are not authorized sending private messages.

Has does one become "authorized" to send PMs to other members?

Thanks,
Glenn B

It is setup so that only admins, moderators, and "team members" (those of us with our names in blue, because we asked to be allowed to edit the wiki that hasn't worked in years) can send PMs. As I understand it, this was done because in a prior version of the forum, some users tried to use the PM system to foment revolt against the site owners, and disabling PMs here for regular members was seen as the cure.

There is an 'email' button on each post and member page right next to the pm button. Since every member should have a valid email address, you ought to be able to send them email from the forum.

JohnOC wrote:There is an 'email' button on each post and member page right next to the pm button. Since every member should have a valid email address, you ought to be able to send them email from the forum.

that method works well for me.

Netpackrat wrote:It is setup so that only admins, moderators, and "team members" (those of us with our names in blue, because we asked to be allowed to edit the wiki that hasn't worked in years) can send PMs. As I understand it, this was done because in a prior version of the forum, some users tried to use the PM system to foment revolt against the site owners, and disabling PMs here for regular members was seen as the cure.

I sure don't remember that being the case in the early years of this forum although, if I am recalling the prior one correctly, yes I can understand there was a lot of friction in that one. Yet, as I said, I don't remember PMs being shut off on this, the current forum, in its early years but my memory may not be as good as it was back then. I guess I have not visited this forum often enough and missed most of the drama, or maybe it's been the melodrama, that must have been going on that resulted in the continuation of no PM privileges for the general membership, the posts about claims of misappropriation of funds and possibly of firearms from the membership and the banning of a founding member of this forum. Oh well, its a shame it has come to that; hopefully things will improve.

All the best,
Glenn B

My recollection jibes with NPR's. And the emails probably get just as good a response rate as the PM's ever did.

Well, I had always wondered what those blue names were for. Now I know.

Glenn Bartley wrote: I sure don't remember that being the case in the early years of this forum although, if I am recalling the prior one correctly, yes I can understand there was a lot of friction in that one. Yet, as I said, I don't remember PMs being shut off on this, the current forum, in its early years but my memory may not be as good as it was back then. I guess I have not visited this forum often enough and missed most of the drama, or maybe it's been the melodrama, that must have been going on that resulted in the continuation of no PM privileges for the general membership, the posts about claims of misappropriation of funds and possibly of firearms from the membership and the banning of a founding member of this forum. Oh well, its a shame it has come to that; hopefully things will improve.

There's not been much (if any) PM drama here since the system has been set up this way pretty much from the start. Occasionally one of us with PM privileges has not realized that the other regular members couldn't read or send PMs, and we'd send them one. That causes confusion because they get a notification that they have a message they cannot see. Some of us may have sent a few such messages after this was explained, because it amused us to do so....

Edit to add; a side effect of reducing the convenience of members to communicate off group may have been to allow the Chris situation to persist longer than it otherwise might have. But maybe not, since admins have the power to interfere with PMs anyway, and as observed, the email button works. That was how I first became aware of it.

There are a variety of reasons, and I'm not certain about this system but on other ones, PMs are private from the general membership, but viewable to admins, etc - this is beneficial in some cases, but may not be the best means of private communication, IMO.

There is no facility for an admin to review all PMs built into the board, but they are all stored in the same database as the member and post data. It isn't difficult to look at them with the right access tools.
From the perspective of an admin, the major downsides of it are 'yet another damn thing to maintain' and potential for accusations of violation of nonexistent privacy of PMs on one hand, and of accusations of tampering with PM conversations on the other hand.
Or we can just turn the damned things off, let people start private e-mail threads with each other from the forum, and have only the occasional "why can't I send a PM?" question to answer.