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Posted 5/29/2012 12:44 AM (GMT 0)
Is there a way to send a message to someone via a private message that I am not aware of?

I ask because every once in awhile one of us might like to send a note to someone with our tel # who seem to be in dire straits and could use extra help or advice or whatever.

Since this board is so public I am not comfortable to offer my Tel# to someone to try to offer assistance within a thread.  I know all the regular posters here would not abuse or do anything improper but I have found a few times I would like to offer some extra help and reach out if the person wanted to avail themselves of it.

Posted 5/29/2012 2:42 AM (GMT 0)
As far as I know, the only way to private message someone is if they have their email address listed under their username.
Posted 5/29/2012 3:04 AM (GMT 0)
That's what I thought and notice most of us choose not to put that in our profile.

I am a regular at a few bulletin boards with the PM feature. Of course if anyone violated it, the webmaster could suspend or terminate your user privileges. Never had a problem with that feature and it is useful when you need a more private/one on one exchange of information with someone.
Posted 5/29/2012 3:18 AM (GMT 0)
If you feel that you want to reach out and leave your email on a thread, my suggestion is providing a secondary email. When feeling more secure with that individual, you can provide more.
Posted 5/29/2012 11:40 AM (GMT 0)

Another UC wife said...
Is there a way to send a message to someone via a private message that I am not aware of?
I ask because every once in awhile one of us might like to send a note to someone with our tel # who seem to be in dire straits and could use extra help or advice or whatever.

Since this board is so public I am not comfortable to offer my Tel# to someone to try to offer assistance within a thread. I know all the regular posters here would not abuse or do anything improper but I have found a few times I would like to offer some extra help and reach out if the person wanted to avail themselves of it.

it would be great if this site could set up private messaging. I had my email listed on here and had some nut job emailing me nasty emails. It was scary. I will never post my email address on a public forum ever again. Lesson learned.
Posted 5/29/2012 12:12 PM (GMT 0)
Agree, a PM feature would be great. One thing you can do is put a secondary email (no identifying info, just get a free account from somewhere) in an actual post, rather than in your profile. I did this when I was trying to meet up with people while traveling. There is some risk, but it's a lot less likely that some spammer would find it in one post, rather than on a profile....

Also, leave off the @ sign when you write in a post, so say something like "janedoe at yahoo". That way the bots that automatically scan looking for email addresses don't pick it up.

Definitely do not put a phone number.
Posted 5/29/2012 12:40 PM (GMT 0)
I think I'll pass on setting up another e-mail address. I'll just continue to answer threads the best I can. Really don't want to add another e-mail or at least not at this time.

(Every so often it just seems like it would be nice to offer that extra avenue of being able to reach out and extend yourself if the other person wishes to avail themselves to a phone conversation for more indepth info.)
Posted 5/29/2012 1:56 PM (GMT 0)
Yes, do not put your email address in a post. Spambots search the web looking for email addresses and search for @such and such.com and find it really easy.. I posted mine as this Q U I... With spaces because sometimes they can't find it and right after that I was getting all kinds of spam in my spam folder.
Posted 5/29/2012 4:37 PM (GMT 0)
uc wife
I have two e-mail addresses, both with gmail. Both are free. On my healingwell profile I listed my secondary e-mail. If it ever turns into a problem I will just diiscontinue it. Nothing lost. I use my primary e-mail for everything else.

Is it too hot for you to go outside yet? Michigan is very comfortable. Took a cruise on the lake yesterday evening. Wonderful

Dan in MI
Posted 5/29/2012 6:43 PM (GMT 0)
It has been hot but we are getting tons of much needed rain yesterday and today and I will NOT complain as we need it desperately.

Maybe I'll do a gmail thingy at some point - we have 2 now that are primaries...just didn't want a 3rd one but it would only be for these type of situations. I just feel here and there it might be nice to extend a hand up for some that are in such dire straits. That is why a PM feature is absolutely great..if any abuse you can report it to the webmaster which everyone knows so nobody will abuse it.
Posted 5/29/2012 7:21 PM (GMT 0)
I wonder if Peter or others leading HW have made a decision not to have PM or if it's a resource issue (time, money, expertise etc).... might be worth asking.
Posted 5/29/2012 9:53 PM (GMT 0)
I have a website and having a pm feature, for me at least doesn't cost extra, but it can cause problems. Because people abuse it, and unlike on the forum the abuse isn't public, so its often not caught. For instance I had a guy who was being very inappropriate to the females on my board, but I didn't see it cause it was in their pm box. Finally someone made the comment to me and sent me the messages, or otherwise I would have never known. I have a small site only 2thousand members, but only about 100 are currently active, so I leave my pm system open, but with a site this big I doubt I would leave it open.
Anyway, I was just saying in another thread sometimes I wish we could just go to someones house when they are having so much trouble and fix them up! There were times at first that would have been great! Its so hard to explain on line
Posted 6/1/2012 6:14 PM (GMT 0)
No I would never post a tel #...I was just thinking along the lines of an e-maill address to reach out to someone in need and THEN if I felt it was a trustworthy person who really needed help I would share my tel #.

I am however very reticent to share such personal info. I do appreciate the responses.
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