Please Bring Back Private Messaging

[Mike]

I didn’t notice the moment it disappeared from the upper right corner, but I noticed it’s been gone for awhile. Private messaging allowed me to help a lot of people that saw some intelligent post I made but sent me their question in a PM because they didn’t want to thread-jack. I’ve also done this myself with other users. With this feature gone, it diminishes this forum’s effectiveness as a resource. It was also nice to be able to keep up with other forum regulars whom I now have no way of privately contacting (except for Pitt, who I email from time to time), but the former benefit of the system is the important thing here.

I did search the forum a couple weeks ago for a explanatory post regarding the removal of PM, but didn’t find anything. I’m half expecting someone to say that it’s been moved to a different part of the page or something and I’m too dull to see it.

Topic

[EricTheCarGuy]

The messaging program was dropped from the site because it was causing security issues and interfering with the operation of the forum. The developer has a request into the developer of the messaging software to see if there’s a fix. If we’re able to bring it back, we will. If not, apologies in advance.

[Mike]

Now that you mention it, I remember the form to seem glitchy before when it is not now. I used to stay logged in for weeks, and then I started getting logged out multiple times a day more recently, and I’ve been staying logged in now that the messaging is gone. Thanks for the info on this Eric, and you know I sure hope an acceptable solution is found.

[subhobroto]

I’m really conflicted about this.

One one had, I don’t want to waste your time and money behind chasing technical issues like this, and on the other hand I wish I had the ability to communicate with other members directly.

The security issue being fixed might take some significant resources depending on how complicated it is.

Just today I wanted to PM college man about a question I had with one of his suggestions to another member and posting that question in the thread could derail the thread, so I did not.

I have decided to work around the issue by creating a thread that has my question and invite college man (and others) to share their knowledge there, but this won’t work in every situation and has the side effect of creating many threads.

So a long term solution could be to use a FaceBook (or similar) page that allows direct messaging?

[Wyatt Talley]

We will be updating the forum in the next few weeks and i will see if it works better with the messaging system. Till then it will be offline.

[Mike]

I seem to be the only one who cares about this, but I can’t help but bring this up again. I don’t contribute to the forum nearly as much anymore because of this messaging being gone. Aside from the help it’s allowed me to exchange with people, it being gone has cut me off from several extended conversations I was having with other forum members. Folks I used to socialize with (like no_common_sense, Chevyman, MDK22, Pitt, etc) not only have to publicly post their contact info for that to continue, but they don’t seem to be around contributing to the forum anymore either.

A internet forum with no private messaging is like driving car with no gauges. In every forum I use, private messaging is a critical and ongoing aspect of the forum’s functionality. It’s definitely a shame what’s happened. This forum even has a classified section which now requires that parties wishing to do business either have to post their personal contact information publicly or choose to have all discussion of a sale be posted publicly in the thread.

I used to enjoy helping people here and my forum stats reflect that, but I believe this omission has substantially handicapped this forum. In hindsight, I’m definitely glad I wasn’t offered that moderator position last year. I would never have been able to stay committed to it through the process of losing touch with so much of this forum.

I miss this forum and it seems like I’m the only who care about this problem. I guess I just wanted to clearly say that this problem and it’s effects are the reason I’m no longer active here. It didn’t get old, it just got broken, and I’m sorry it did.

[EricTheCarGuy]

[quote=”Fopeano” post=164690]I seem to be the only one who cares about this, but I can’t help but bring this up again. I don’t contribute to the forum nearly as much anymore because of this messaging being gone. Aside from the help it’s allowed me to exchange with people, it being gone has cut me off from several extended conversations I was having with other forum members. Folks I used to socialize with (like no_common_sense, Chevyman, MDK22, Pitt, etc) not only have to publicly post their contact info for that to continue, but they don’t seem to be around contributing to the forum anymore either.

A internet forum with no private messaging is like driving car with no gauges. In every forum I use, private messaging is a critical and ongoing aspect of the forum’s functionality. It’s definitely a shame what’s happened. This forum even has a classified section which now requires that parties wishing to do business either have to post their personal contact information publicly or choose to have all discussion of a sale be posted publicly in the thread.

I used to enjoy helping people here and my forum stats reflect that, but I believe this omission has substantially handicapped this forum. In hindsight, I’m definitely glad I wasn’t offered that moderator position last year. I would never have been able to stay committed to it through the process of losing touch with so much of this forum.

I miss this forum and it seems like I’m the only who care about this problem. I guess I just wanted to clearly say that this problem and it’s effects are the reason I’m no longer active here. It didn’t get old, it just got broken, and I’m sorry it did.[/quote]

I appreciate your feelings but as stated, at this time we are not able to use messaging on this forum. You have my apologies.

[dan]

it would be nice to have that ability back, it was nice to send messages privately to some users, but what happens and what needs to be done is what needs to be done.

[Wyatt Talley]

Ok i have taken a look at it and re enabled it again. There are some users you can not be messaged but you will not notice. If it becomes an issue again i will be forced to take it down without notice.

[Author]

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