Hey, I'm kind of a n00b, can you tell me how to send private messages to members?
thanks
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Hey, I'm kind of a n00b, can you tell me how to send private messages to members?
thanks
Way to hijack a thread!
New members are prevented from posting private messages until they reach a certain threshold of posts.
Learn some etiquette and post your messages in the correct forums and in appropriate threads. You won't last very long 'round here, if you don't.
*thread split*
For the love of all that is good. The forum desperately needs an auto-filter, that'll block threads posted by new members about things like this, and of course, inform them why.
Great way to scare them away and make signing up even more tedious than it is.
No, you will scare away legitimate users, too. A lot, I would reckon.
Don't kid yourself with this response... I'm sure a lot of people picked up on the very obvious joke. There is a thing called deadpan humor where people don't feel the need to use outrageous facial expressions and silly inflections in their voice to get the joke across... you simply discern the humor through the absurdity of the scenario presented in contrast to their historically normal sensibility.
And I'm sure a lot wouldn't!
<jokingly>
I have Scandinavian relatives and I would say their palette for humour is as different from NA as their palette for food. They like pickled fish with hard liquor first thing in the morning, and are slapstick throughout the day. I think they consider deadpan humor morose or introverted; something you take refuge in if you are no good at elaborate practical jokes.
</jokingly>
<seriously>
You could always put an initial form letter in the PM box explaining the issue. A lot of places do that kind of thing; it is no trouble, I think.
</seriously>
For the matter of humour... I have this running gag about the weather where I live. Because I am between a major water falls, and two giant steel smelters, near the shore of a huge lake, the weather patterns here are different than even 30 miles away...
So on a day when it's raining all around us but not here I will start talking very technically about "The Brantford Weather Deflector"... saying how it's working perfectly. Or if it rains the gag turns to "See what happens when you let Microsoft feed it automatic updates, the entire sensor array goes off line" ...
Now all my friends get the gag and several will join in asking ludicrous questions like "Did you ever find that 3 pound block of titanium you needed?" or such...
We have a lot of fun with it.
But... occasionaly someone won't get the joke, takes the whole thing seriously and then gets all upset when they finally get clued into the joke. "It's deadpan humour, they're just carrying on..."
We tend to call these people "Humour impaired" and wonder how anyone could be sucked in by something so obvious...
Really... exactly how humourless have we all become???
So humourless that we report moderators for making jokes via private messaging!Quote:
Originally Posted by CommonTater
Okay, I admit that I chuckled at CommonTater's joke, but Elysia does have a point in that, especially in a text based medium, humour can be difficult to project and discern. After all, I recall joining a message board where one of the anti-spambot measures was a question concerning the topic of the message board... changing it to a question concerning the rules of the message board would not be too far off, so someone who does not imagine how absurd an entire quiz of such questions would be might take it seriously.
Send out a welcome PM that explains this kind of stuff and points to all the announcements. I think you should be able to do it automatically.
That's a sensible solution. Of course you'd also have to have a more direct way of telling a new user that they have a new private message along with a link to the said private message. A lot of forums do a pop-up either in a new window or just and overlay over the forum window when a new PM is received. You have to assume people that have trouble sending PMs or accessing their account is also going to have trouble realizing they have a PM and checking it. That little notification at the top might seem obvious to most of us, but then the people asking these questions aren't really most of us.
That's actually a user setting.
Not everyone's sense is as well evolved, refined, and superior as your own, o' master of humor.
The problem is there are _countless_ forums that send you a greeting PM when you sign up. As such, I think they would be ignored for the most part, considering I've learned to ignore them myself. But that could just be me, dunno.
I don't care about that. :D The point is mods can quickly close threads about getting one on one help, their lack of ability to have an avatar or a signature, closing their accounts, deleting their posts or code. If anyone has a problem the mods just say did you read the welcome PM. No? Sucks to be you.
Is it really such a problem? What is it, twice a month? It's hardly something to twist any knickers over. It's a cliche, but if you're sick of answering the question why enter the thread? It's not like these types of threads are ever titled obtusely. Besides, none of the people who ask PM/avatar/signature questions ever post again anyway, so if it goes unanswered, who's to care?
Then again, the moderators would be able to do those if instructions concerning them were in a stickied announcement too. That said, SlyMaelstrom's point makes sense: a seasoned forum user, or someone so desperate for help that he/she ignores everything else, would not read the message, whether as a PM or a stickied post, but a new forum user otherwise is more likely to read a PM than a stickied post.Quote:
Originally Posted by whiteflags
So ... now you got this thread... Ask... What's your small question?
Couldn't you guys take this to PMs or something?
Quzah.
Adding notes on this to the user welcome messaging is a very good suggestion!
I already have the forum send a welcome email to new users, but I'd never taken the time to edit it. I've updated it to include a link to the forum guidelines and a special note about the PM system. I also added the welcome PM as whiteflags suggested, with links to several resources as well as a second explanation of the PM system.