Lois & Clark Forums Forums General Discussion Fun with Polls Would you like to Private Message?

Okay...here's the story <G>.

Recently, a member asked about the boards private message function. For those of you not familiar with this option, if the admins enable this function it will allow you to send messages to other members of the mbs by clicking on the PM button next to their names.

The admins can't think of any good reason why not ... so we're leaving it up to you. Simple one - yes or no.

I'd love to. I've taken to sometimes e-mailing people if I want to get in touch with them privately, and that has worked in the past, but some are understandably reticent about leaving their addresses viewable in their profiles. The PM feature would facilitate personal contact without bringing up any privacy issues, which would be nice.

Ditto to Chris... and waaay off topic -

Chris, where is your sig quote from?

Sara

I wasn't even aware that this was a UBB-available function. But it's certainly very useful on the other (non-UBB) boards I frequent.

Yes, please!

Ditto. I, too, use the option a lot on other forums, and I was pleasantly surprised to hear that it's a possibility on these boards.

It's from a Comic Book Resources interview with former Adventures of Superman writer Greg Rucka and it can be found in its proper context a third of the way down this page . Err, in case you're curious enough to click on the link and CTRL+F to find the quote, I replaced "this" in the original sentence with "Superman."

Yeah, sure. It sounds nice to be able to dash off a quick comment or two to someone without having to dredge up a whole new email box.

Jen

I'm not sure about whether I'd like it or not (Luddite, me ). So what I'd like to know is whether it's possible to disable it on an individual basis if I decide I don't like it.

Course, I could just go into my profile or the control panel and find out...


Wendy

No. I don't like it. I am on other boards that doesn't give the email adress, so I receive private messages on theses boards.

When a PM is sent to me, I receive a mail that tells me to go and read the PM I received. Well, I don't see the differences between receive a mail to tell us we have a message, and receive the message in the mail. I receive a mail anyway, so I prefer to have directly the message...

That sounds like something you could switch off in your preferences, Poussin. Although, all forums are different, I guess. But usually getting an email confirmation of anything is something you can change in your personal settings. Might be worth taking a look at your profile and finding out.

On the Stargate forum I frequent it certainly is possible to disable the PM function from your own profile. You can also block PM's from certain individuals if you choose.

From this forum's FAQ:

Now whether that bold part means you can set it to block certain individuals from sending you a PM, or whether you can set it globally to prevent you getting PM's entirely...not sure.

Logically, you would imagine that if a forum gives you the option to show or hide your eddress on your posts, depending on whether you want other members to contact you or not, you'd get the same choice with PM. But then you can, of course, never guarantee that logic will apply with anything online.


LabRat

It could be handy. Could save us from some of those "Paging ____" posts and such. (Not that they're all that common, but still... Better all around for such cases.)

Seems like the majority of voters are in favor of it.

Seems like the majority of boards members aren't voting, which probably indicates that it wouldn't be a very commonly used feature.

Doesn't really cost much to turn it on, and I assume it's easy enough to turn it back off.

So... why not give it a shot, see how it works, and post another poll in a few weeks to see if people want to keep it?

Paul

Well, unless you have it set so that you get an email when someone sends you a private message, I don't see how, unless you diligently check your profile every day, you're ever going to see any of these private messages people send you. As a sender of private messages, I think I'd want to know whether I was wasting my time sending the message because the recipient has switched email notification off and thus isn't likely to read my message. Is that possible? And as a recipient, I, personally, would switch off the email notification because I'm just too lazy to bother trekking over to the message boards and finding my profile to read a message someone could have emailed me directly. If someone wants to contact me, there are other ways to find my email addy and send me a message that way.

So I have no objection, per se, to the introduction of private messaging, but I probably wouldn't use it myself.

Yvonne

I'd like to hear from some of the people (or some more of the people) voting no or who may have concerns of objections but haven't voted.

You may be in the minority so far, guys, but your views are still important.

I can't speak for the other admins, but even if the majority is voting yes for this feature, if there were forum members worried about it I'd rather not have it turned on. Those who want it won't lose anything if it isn't, since it's never been there for them to use in the first place. So without it their enjoyment of the forum won't really be affected. But if it's really going to bother someone to the extent that it affects their enjoyment of the forum, I'd rather it wasn't there than it was. We've got on pretty well without it so far.

If you don't want to register your opinion here on the thread, remember you can always email the admins.


LabRat

I'm for it. I've never used such a function anywhere.

Mind you, I don't know if I'd ever use it or receive anything.

I think it's a good idea. I personally wouldn't mind having such function.
I visit other boards too and they also have PM functions available. When I log-in, there would be a pop-up message if someone had send me new messages. Of course if you don't like it you can disable it.

*_*
Yakira

I think the difference is a matter of privacy. Using PM's, people can contact you and you can receive an email about it, but they don't necessarily know what your email address is.


It's hard to judge how much the feature will be used, but I think part of the reason people aren't voting is because they don't know that the question is being asked here. I was keeping my eye out for this thread, which is the only reason I bothered checking in the Polls section. Otherwise, I never would have seen it.

I'm okay with it.

I think it wouldn't hurt.

Regarding the notification system - here's a screencap from another board I frequent:



As you can see, there's a bar to let you know about your PMs. It's incorporated into the board's structure, so you don't need to install anything or something. I suppose it could be done here too, incorporated in the bar that lets us know we're logged in...

See ya,
AnnaBtG.

(After Paul's suggestion, I added the red indications so that the notification bar is more visible. Thanks to Sara for resizing.)

It was getting low voter numbers in general. Votes are starting to come in a little faster, but the age poll (posted not too much before this one) has fairly consistently had about twice as many votes as this one.

At the time I posted, only about 15 people had voted.

What that tells me is that most people either don't know or don't care, which means they probably won't end up using it.

Lab does have a good point, though, that if anyone is uncomfortable with the whole thing, we should give that due consideration. Clearly, we've managed without PMs all this time.

Like I said, I probably wouldn't use it too often, but I think it would be handy to have. It's a way to contact those people who choose not to publically display their email addresses, and it's only open to registered boards users (which means it can't be used by random spammers).

So... I'm for it. Not strongly "we have to do this!!" for it, but generally in favor.

EDIT: Anna posted while I was writing this.

Anna, thanks for the screencap. Wow, amazing how flexible UBB is. At first glance, I didn't even think that was made with the same boards software.

The notification does seem to be fairly unobtrusive.

Would you be able to reduce the picture size, though? It might be large for our friends on dialup. (Besides, cropping it a bit would help highlight the part of the screen you're talking about. ... Actually, adding an arrow or something might help, if you have a sec.)

Paul

Well, looks like the vote is pretty clear and no one who's voted no has taken up the invitation to let us know what their concerns are...so, you have a green light to PM, FoLCs.

If you want to PM another board member, just click on the little icon on their posts - the one with two people and an envelope.

I checked the PM settings earlier and it is possible for individual members to turn off the feature, so no worries there. You can do that through your profile. Just scroll down to the 'enable PM' setting and switch it to no.

It goes without saying - but just in case I'll say it anyway - that this is supposed to be a fun feature. It should not be used to flame, bully, browbeat or otherwise harass other members. I know you guys are a friendly bunch and enjoy the welcoming atmosphere we've nurtured here on the mbs, so I doubt we'll have problems of that nature. But on the outside chance that anyone does have problems, do let us know.

So...over to you guys. Have fun talking.

LabRat

Nifty! Thanks, LabRat.