The Chetboard

Ok...am I lost here or has the feature for sending personal messages changed on the chetboard???? When I scroll over to contact "so and so" it doesn't do anything. What's up Tom?

Now there's this Friends/Foe deal.....what the heck? Can someone walk me through how to send personal messages? Or can you anymore? Anyone?? Anyone?? Bueller? Bueller? Bueller?...................Sorry, just a little Ferris Bueller joke there......

I noticed the PM feature being gone at least a week ago.

Probably a wise decision due to the way things were heating up.

Too much opportunity for off the board meanness

The friend/foe thing I can't help you with. It looks like some kinda thing you'd see on facebook

Norm is correct, it was turned off intentionally.

So if we want to contact someone on the board and we don't know their personal email address we have to ask them for it publicly?

That, or perhaps you can think of a mutual contact whose email you do have and ask them to help you make contact.

Unfortunately, the anonymity granted by the internet naming protocols bring out the cyber-bushwhackers who like to say mean or vicious things secure in the knowledge that little can be done to protect or defend such meanness.

When I saw the PM feature was gone I fully understood.

Daddy had come and taken away everybody's peashooters because even peas can hurt if shot with mean intent.

Some people abuse a feature then the feature gets taken away and everybody loses.

Norm wrote:That, or perhaps you can think of a mutual contact whose email you do have and ask them to help you make contact. Unfortunately, the anonymity granted by the internet naming protocols bring out the cyber-bushwhackers who like to say mean or vicious things secure in the knowledge that little can be done to protect or defend such meanness. When I saw the PM feature was gone I fully understood. Daddy had come and taken away everybody's peashooters because even peas can hurt if shot with mean intent. Some people abuse a feature then the feature gets taken away and everybody loses.

I have rarely ever used the "personal message" feature on boards/forums, etc. because I have always questioned just how "personal" they were in the first place. Other than the occasional receipt of Spam/Advertising matter etc. I prefer making the decision myself, whether or not I receive, (or won't receive) Email from other people. I think nearly all Email programs/software give the user the prerogitive of blocking certain specific Email addresses (at the discretion of the user), so I don't really see any need of this feature anyhow. Email addresses have enough anonymity as it is, without having to hide behind yet another "filtering" by an unknown reader/censor who may, or may not, agree with the content of the message. Besides, we already have the CIA to perform this service for us!

I have nothing to hide, so anyone who wishes to Email me may do so, and if I don't like what you say, I can just "BLOCK" you for any future communications!

David

Agreed, Eddie, but some folk are cautious about putting out their email addresses.

the internet is about as secure as spit and baling wire and one needs to exercise caution walking across that field

Norm,
"some folk are cautious about putting out their email addresses"

Which makes PM an integral part of a forum. If I wanted to ask you something about something that wouldn't interest anyone here, I would either have to publish my email address or you yours. Spammers have gotten so sophisticated that they can now harvest "encrypted" email addresses, like jay(at)gmail(dot)com.

It's too bad that this boards PM was misused.

I agree. PM-ing is a good and valuable tool. I never said it wasn't.

That line you highlighted was just in response to Eddie's post about being ok with email. He's OK with it, others are not.

I liked the PM feature and wanted to use it recently which is how I discovered it was gone. I knew immediately why it had been shut down and could only shake my head at how people's spiteful mean-ness caused a nice feature to be disabled

I know I got a little sarcastic with one of the guys but at least I apologized for it. It's not the first time I have done so. but I never did any off the board sniping using PM