PM restrictions

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Due to abuse of the Private Messages (PM) feature, we recently added some restrictions. Most active members will not notice a difference.

Some long-time members who are not very active may be surprised to find that while you previously were able to use PMs, you can not any longer. Rest assured that a) this is a universal restriction, not specific to anything you did, and b) as you continue to participate on A2K, the restriction will most likely be lifted. (Note: once the restrictions are lifted, PM privileges are still subject to removal on an individual basis if they are abused. Abuse includes but is not limited to sending spam, threats, or unwanted propositions. Occasionally PM privileges are never granted to members due to TOS violations -- this is rare.)

We will not say the precise point at which the restrictions will be lifted, as that will counteract the purpose of foiling spammers and other abusers of the privilege. The threshold is calculated automatically using an algorithm with several components, and changes periodically.

A2K recently underwent some maintenance, and as an (unintended) result the restrictions were temporarily lifted from 2/22 to 3/5 . Because of this, some people thought they had reached the threshold and were distressed when they then lost the privileges again. Our apologies.

If you would prefer not to wait, you may post an email address on your profile. This need not give away any personal information -- you can open a free Yahoo or Hotmail account, for example, with your A2K username.

Feel free to post a link to this announcement if you know anyone who is confused about the current PM situation.

Thank you!

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Just how long does 'temporary' mean? I have almost 400 posts on this site, but can receive, but not reply to member PM. These members probably think I am a complete jerk, who will not respond to them.

I understand problems of abuse, but this does not apply to me at all. Why am I blocked from PM. There is a good friend of mine, through the net, that has only work access. He can't send me an e-mail at all. He thinks I am lost in space or ignoring our long time friendship. There are other members who relate to topics of interest, who think I am ignoring them.

Please, straighten out this PM problem! Eliminate those who abuse it, but I never did.

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Wildflower63 wrote:

There is a good friend of mine, through the net, that has only work access. He can't send me an e-mail at all.

Wildflower, if your friend can surf to able2know at work, then why cant he surf to, say, mail.yahoo.com as well, and send you an email from there? If you take a yahoo or hotmail address yourself that you put in your profile, as recommended, then you'll easily be able to communicate with each other that way.

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Dear Most Fair and Benevolent Leaders,
.....Of course I accept your decision. However there is one extenuating circumstance, I must in inquire about. Two years ago I was a member in good standing. I must have had hundreds of posts. I was wondering if you could count that My moniker was Booman. If you can't I can only accept it, ........and pout a bit but you can't see that, so hey?

Respectfully Yours,
Booman 2

..P.S. If you can't do that, could you PM, Rae for me, tell her my dilemna,
and I'll have my e-mail in my profile.

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Booman 1/2--

If I were you, I'd ask the mods directly. Scroll to the bottom of any A2K page and click on the "Contact Us" option.

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been there,tried that...

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Jespah,
....any chance I could get a response, on my last request?

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I sent her a pm with that information, Booman, just befor posting here.

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It's just by chance that I saw this. The forums are not a good way of reaching any of the moderators. Clicking "Contact Us" is a lot faster. With nearly 40,000 members, I'm afraid we have to insist on communication through our channels. It's a much more organized way for us to handle requests in order. And that's any sort of requests, not just about PMs. Thank you for your understanding.

The easiest thing to do is, click "Contact Us" at the bottom of any page and ask about getting back your old account, booman. It's probably a very minor technical glitch. Thanks!

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I would like to clear up a possible misconception regarding the help desk being unresponsive in this area. The support staff has contacted booman about helping him to regain access to his original account, but either he has not responded or has responded with only meaningless text. It's also possible that an auto responder was set up in some odd way. Plus, we believe his spam filter may be trashing the help desk's emails. We are happy to help him -- we are happy to help everyone, in point of fact -- but we need assistance in order to be able to figure out what the problem is.

booman, my suggestion is to check incoming mail, particularly mail that has been placed into a bulk folder, prior to deleting that email. In the event that that is the problem, add the help desk's email address to your list of approved senders and any problem with receiving our emails should be diminished if not cured in the future. Thank you.

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Huh!!!! Meaningless text????? Perhaps that is the reason I can only receive PM's but cannot send one in response. I just went over the agreement policy and see that you have to be at least 13 to contribute to this site. That bit of information is awesomely helpful (I'm trying to fit in). I don't recall the agreement policy reading as it currently does when I logged in some time back, but since I am no longer 13, perhaps my memory fails me. It is reassuring that the monitor folks have such high standards when it comes to who can communicate with who. All the time, when I was told I no longer measure up for PM privileges, I assumed it was because I had somehow violated the rules. It is very reasurring to learn that perhaps 13 year olds are monitoring this site. As a mother who has raised youngens who were 13 at some time or other, suddenly this practice makes perfect sense. Perhaps I am wrong, after all I am over the age of 13, but I don't remember the agreement, as currently stated, as the one I agreed to when I signed up. And I have to give a big shout out to the folks who have removed my PM privilege but will not tell me what I need to do to restore it. Give yourself a big pat on the back for a stunning display of intellectual curiosity. This must be the wave of the future. By the way, do people still contruct "slam books", or is it just done on the internet?

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A quick note to my friend who does have PM power. I no longer have the correct email address for you. I am pretty sure you sent an update out a while ago, but I must have failed to make the correction on my address book thingy. It was good to hear from you and I hope you and your other half are doing well. As usual, I have thrown caution to the wind and posted my address in my profile. In all the time I have been involved in these deep discussion groups, I have never been bothered by the crazies......not by email at least.

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Jespah,
.....I'm remiss for not saying this earlier. Embarrassed

Your pm action on my account worked. Thank you very much.

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Glitterbag, I thought I remembered that you were angry about the pm feature before. You might reread that thread -
HERE
and also look at Jespah's first post on this one.

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Hello Osso, long time since we last talked, its good to hear from you. Regarding the PM's I think it is accurate to say I was at least peeved. If the amount of posting is what makes you eligible, then I suppose I am screwed. I do remember posting that thread a while back. I originally posted because the webmaster told me I should start a thread and provide my email address if I wished to respond to folks. The beauty of the PM is that no one has to reveal their email address. Actually they pulled my thread for a while because they felt that I was expressing negative opinions of the forum authorities, but after several emails back and forth between me and the webmaster, they restored it, but under a different catagory. I originally used the Political catagory to post. Anyhow, whatever the criteria is, all I have heard is speculation, nothing appears in the agreement that you sign up to in order to join. I still have the email where they tell me that they cannot tell me what I have to do in order to be a member in good standing. I know, I know, it is silly of me to expect clarification. I don't run this site so I don't get to make the rules. To be fair, it must take a lot of time to keep something like this up and running, time that I don't have. But you never know, maybe one day, sometime, without explanation, I will once again be able to say "I am a member in good standing". Then I could add it to my resume.

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The use of 'member in good standing' has always seemed more than a bit inappropriate to me, but no one asked me.

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I'm probably the wrong person to ask ehBeth. In the past when I was confused about an issue, I could depend on Emily Post for etiquette information, GPO style manual for official correspondence, dictionaries, grammar primers when my English suffered due to foreign language training. But maybe I should look at this in a different way, perhaps this is a sorority and I can enjoy hanging on tenterhooks until I finally am accepted. Sometimes we need a little mystery in our lives. Oh God, I hope those other girls let me in.

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Maybe if you add some powder and blush?
Some of the sisters are a bit fussy about that sort of thing.

Very Happy

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Interesting thought. Or could it be that I think flashing is tacky, I know I know, very old school. But at least my future grandchildren won't see Granny flashing a bunch of drunks in the French Quarter.

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I am guessing you stand fine, glitterbag - and that the authorities can't be clearer - not to thwart you, but to thwart spammers, which in some past episodes were great trouble to the site.
I agree the good standing phrase is kind of off putting to people - we have some infrequent but wonderful posters.. but I don't think it was meant to insult.
Past all that, it's good to see you back, Glitter..

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