# Why no private messages?



## alsih2o (Aug 18, 2004)

I have twice in two days tried to contact someone who had their user cp set to not allow private messages.

 Now, to each their own, I am just looking for some level of understanding- Why would you not allow yourself to recieve them?


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## diaglo (Aug 18, 2004)

sometimes they interrupt your train of thought or focus.

you stop by to see the boards and post something... when you get an annoying reminder that you have a PM.

sure you can ignore it... but it takes you away from what you were ...

what was i doing...  


i don't know. i have mine turned on.


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## BSF (Aug 18, 2004)

Privacy?

I know of at least one person here on the boards that values privacy and tries to retain tight control on how you can contact him or her.  I respect that.  Some of us adopt an online persona as a risk mitigation tactic.  Maybe it can get inconvenient, but there might be ways to contact those people through a post as well.  A second option would be to see if somebody that knows how to contact the person would be willing to act as intermediary.  I'll use Macbeth as an example since he is friendly.  

If it were somebody that I knew Macbeth could contact outside the boards, I might send him a PM or email and ask if he could pass on a message.  Either the message in entirety, or just a message that I am trying to contact the person.  Then the recipient can decide if they want to allow me to contact them directly.  

In the not so distant past, I tried to send somebody a message.  No PM, no email.  I knew I had seen that person with an email address in a .sig at one point, but the .sig had been changed.  Then I remembered an old thread where it might have been posted.  I have search capabilities!    I found the address I wanted and then stopped.  Obviously this person values privacy, so was my email that important?  Since it was a relatively anonymous address I decided to send it off.  (yahoo & hotmail are what I consider relatively anonymous.  In fact, I have a yahoo address for this screen name.  I even check it a couple of times a month.)  It seemed to turn out well overall, but I did have some concern that I might have been invading somebody else's privacy.


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## Piratecat (Aug 18, 2004)

Be aware that only community supporters can use PMs. Might that be it?


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## Brother Shatterstone (Aug 19, 2004)

alsih2o said:
			
		

> I have twice in two days tried to contact someone who had their user cp set to not allow private messages.




I say forget them you can always PM me.   



			
				alsih2o said:
			
		

> Now, to each their own, I am just looking for some level of understanding- Why would you not allow yourself to recieve them?




I can't help on that, I have my email address and every chat program known to man listed, I take unsolicited emails, PMs and chat messages all the time.  Now some of this might be because I'm a mod, but to be honest I have the same listings at any message board I visit regularly and it really comes down to the fact that I love to help people so it's all fine by me. 



			
				BardStephenFox said:
			
		

> If it were somebody that I knew Macbeth could contact outside the boards, I might send him a PM or email and ask if he could pass on a message. Either the message in entirety, or just a message that I am trying to contact the person. Then the recipient can decide if they want to allow me to contact them directly.




Does this mean that every user is suppose to know who each user recipient is?  Honestly?


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## BSF (Aug 19, 2004)

Brother Shatterstone said:
			
		

> Does this mean that every user is suppose to know who each user recipient is?  Honestly?




Certainly not!  But if you look around a little bit, you might be surprised at an indirect method of reaching somebody.  

Sure, you have email and chat programs listed as ways to contact you.  So do I.  As a result, I have a few unsolicited contacts with people.  

I'll pick on Macbeth again because I know him.  We game together.    He has PM's enabled, but if he didn't, and somebody needed to contact him, they might remember the number of threads where he and I have posted.  Perhaps in one of the Ceramic DM threads where I joked I would have a little more time to get my story done since he has an hour or so drive to get to my house.  Knowing that I know him, you might email or PM me and I would pass it on and let him decide if he wanted to respond.  

My point isn't that everyone surely knows somebody and you should be aware of all the relationships.  I'm just pointing out that there might be other options beyond the obvious PM/Email/Chat client route.


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## Brother Shatterstone (Aug 19, 2004)

BardStephenFox said:
			
		

> I'll pick on Macbeth again because I know him.  We game together.    He has PM's enabled, but if he didn't, and somebody needed to contact him, they might remember the number of threads where he and I have posted.




Wow, we need to rename this thread pick on Macbeth, back before he got all “responsible” he use to do a little PbP gaming so I know him from their so I'll pick on him too.   

I notice his posts, I recognize both his username and his avatar, but nearly 6,000 posts later I had no idea that he knew you in person. (Which is very cool btw.)

I don't want to say my time is more important than someone privacy, and after leaving with 30 other men in the same room, with no more than a coffin sized space and a see-through blue curtain, not to mention living with 5,000 souls on a ship the size of a 3 football field for 6 months straight, that I can honestly say I realize just how precious privacy is, but your asking for someone to search through the users last 500 posts looking for some sort of connection to another user…  

That’s asking a bit too much if you ask me, but that just me…

Oh and since I’m here, hey Clay when you going to update the darn game!?


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## Ashwyn (Aug 19, 2004)

So they can say "Nobody likes me, everybody hates me, I think I'll go eat worms.".


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## Berandor (Aug 19, 2004)

What does enabling PMs have to do with privacy? The PM is saved on the server, under your screen name, and does not allow others to know more about you than your online profile already does.


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## alsih2o (Aug 19, 2004)

Piratecat said:
			
		

> Be aware that only community supporters can use PMs. Might that be it?




 It said "has chosen not too" so I don't think that was it.

 I would go with BSF's explanation, but he started stretching it with the whole "Macbeth is friendly" stuff.



 Thanks for helping me to understand.


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## Gez (Aug 19, 2004)

I dunno, I see PM as something that is very privacy-friendly. It allows people to contact me without having to give my email address. It's a boost for privacy!


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## BSF (Aug 19, 2004)

alsih2o said:
			
		

> I would go with BSF's explanation, but he started stretching it with the whole "Macbeth is friendly" stuff.




Did I say friendly?  I meant funny.  Yeah, that's it.  

EN World is cool because I have virtually met a lot of neat people.  I have even met people for real through EN World.  I like PM's.  I have my email available, well when the server will let you see it.  There hasn't been one person I have met on EN World that I have regretted contacting.


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## Berandor (Aug 19, 2004)

BardStephenFox said:
			
		

> There hasn't been one person I have met on EN World that I have regretted contacting.




Is that a challenge?


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## Macbeth (Aug 19, 2004)

Berandor said:
			
		

> Is that a challenge?



It's harder then you think.    BSF is a good guy, it would be hard to make him regret meeting you.


And I, for one, have absolutely nothing to say about PMs, but I have enjoyed this thread greatly.


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