Private Messages

[Anonymous]

To Whom it May Concern (The Administrator),

I was wonderning why Guests cannot send private messages to members of this forum. I wasn't really interested in registerning, though since others are sending me URLs on where they can be reached, I can only assume they think unregistered users can send them messages.

I checked the FAQ & all it said was that Unregestered users can't send Private messages, but it gave no reasons to this.

Thanks for your time.

 

[Erik]

The software needs to have a place to "return" messages from and an unregistered user doesn't have a return address within the system to do that.

Registration is easy and perfectly safe. I guarantee that your emails will not be used for anything other then VC Forum business (I send out mailers a few times a year to announce changes, etc.) and that they cannot be seen by visitors or members unless you post them in a message.

Besides your email address all you need is a board name and you're off!

Hopefully you will reconsider registering so that you can use the private message function as well as participate as an active member of the boards.

Erik

 

[Anonymous]

More Private Messages

More Private Messages

The software needs to have a place to "return" messages from and an unregistered user doesn't have a return address within the system to do that.

Registration is easy and perfectly safe. I guarantee that your emails will not be used for anything other then VC Forum business (I send out mailers a few times a year to announce changes, etc.) and that they cannot be seen by visitors or members unless you post them in a message.

Besides your email address all you need is a board name and you're off!

Hopefully you will reconsider registering so that you can use the private message function as well as participate as an active member of the boards.

Erik

Here's a thought, how about creating a Guest account with a standard password, or would that open the way to others abusing that system?

If your the controller of this, surely you could have a list of rules in order for Private Messages to get through, which would have to include an e-mail address for return reply.

I'm not questioning how safe your registerning system is, however I was more concerned into posting private messages which has this registeration restriction.

Naturally, I respect what you do here, but this is of slightly lesser concern to myself.

 

[Erik]

Re: More Private Messages

Re: More Private Messages

Here's a thought, how about creating a Guest account with a standard password, or would that open the way to others abusing that system?

There would be too much room for abuse in that system and it wouldn't really facilitate private messaging anyway. The messaging system is set up as a two-way internal (only) system. All replies to a message from the guest account would, therefore, end up being public. This could lead to some sticky situations even if nobody deliberately abused the system.

Basically the reason for the registration requirement for PMs (as well as for posting and chat) is to ensure that the person behind the handle is the same for each post/message, etc. (without getting into possible complications like account sharing and such.)

If your the controller of this, surely you could have a list of rules in order for Private Messages to get through, which would have to include an e-mail address for return reply.

Actually I have far fewer rules about PMs then about public posts. Basically anything can happen via PMs as long as it's legal and nobody complains. If I do get complaints, however, I will take action.

One thing to note, Private Messages really are private. I don't have ready access to them and haven't seen a single one not addressed to me. That doesn't mean that I couldn't get to them if I really wanted to, but there isn't any facility to do so built into the forum software.

 

[carlsson]

If there was a PM <-> e-mail bridge, the system could require you to enter a valid e-mail address whenever you want to send a private message without being logged on. That would however require the bridge between the two systems. I believe most MTA:s can be configured to read users off a SQL database, but there will be quite some coding to get it to work.

In the community I am programming for, we have this on our agenda, but low-priority, as there are much more important issues than communicating between people inside and outside of the system (since it also is free and safe to become a user in that system).

Another alternative is to get yourself a trashcan Hotmail address and sign up to VC and other forums with that address, if you are afraid of exposing who you are. You don't even have to make the Hotmail address mailable from within the forum, and then only Erik will have the means to contact you on an address you don't read anyway. :lol: