PM restrictions

Hep- It might be a good idea if you open up a web based account in your A2K handle.

Is it ok for me to put my email in my member description? I don't want to do something I'm not suppose to do.

Phoenix... I haven't the slightest clue how to do that!

Sure you can put your E Mail in your member description. If you hit "profile" you will see a box where you can post an E Mail Address.

There are many good websites sites that have free EMail.

www.yahoo.com
www.hotmail.com
www.myway.com
www.fastmail.fm

and many, many more.

The reason that I suggested a web based account opened in your "handle" rather than your real name, is for privacy reasons. You don't want some "kook" to get a hold of your ISP E Mail address.

Just go to one of the sites, and follow the "trail" to where you open an E Mail account. The rest is self explanatory!

I have account at all of these, and some more. I use each account for different things.

Thank you phoenix, I appreciate the information!

Ok, I have another question... What about a link to my msn community... I have had one for several years now. Is that ok to link to from here?

Hep- I really don't know what an "msn community" is. The list on top are the places to which you can link. I suppose that you could put the msn community under "website", but I am not sure. Why don't you go to "Forum Help", and ask one of the powers-that-be?

Stinkin fart button... always gotta be there to make me laugh... even when I don't feel like it. LOL

I think I'm just gonna go ahead and start a website. This could be interesting... Web domains do not seem to be that expensive either... Thanks for the help...

The email address doesn't show up (this is a setting we have here in Admin Land) so that you won't be spammed on the email account you used to sign up for A2K. But there's no reason why you can't add an email address (that one, or another one, whatever) to your profile.

As for a website of any sort, there's one spot for that: the website space in your profile. It's not allowed anywhere else. Hope this clears things up.

Oooh ok I get it now. Thanks jespah. I appreciate the protection from spams also. I hate spams.

I've put my email address on my profile now, under MSN address, if anyone ever wants to talk to me!

Well, I have been a member for three years and I still cannot send a PM. I have received a number of PMs and have been told each and every time that I am not qualified to send PMs when I try to respond. I have never spammed anyone and every time I write I get referred to this thread which basically tells me the same thing as the responses I get from admin..... nothing!

Just what does it take to 'qualify' to answer the PM's that I occasionally get. I have tried to email the senders but they don't have an email listed to respond to them.

I was signed up originally with a different email address & it seems that when I changed IP's that I lost these privileges.

Please don't tell me to list an email address. I have one listed. The few people who have sent me PMs have no way of knowing that I did or did not get their message or that my PM privilege has been removed for unknown reasons.

I realize that you have 40,000 plus members but it seems to me that someone could take the time to provide specific answers to at least one of the half dozen or so requests that I have made in the past 3 months.

Instead I always get referred to this page & told that I might find the answer here.

Sorry guys, I did not find the answer here.

May I also point out that I find the excuse that someone MIGHT spam another person to be a joke. I would think that if a person wanted to spam anyone, that a PM would be the most stupid way ever to accomplish that goal.

Unless there is something that I don't know about PM's, this excuse makes no sense whatsoever. I think of spam as someone who did what NY Zinger did at Abuzz where he posted mile long pieces of garbage multiple times.

I'll send this post to admin one more time and tell them that I have read the thread to no avail but it seems about as effective as writing to George Bush and expecting an answer. I am not holding my breath on this one!

Whoa! I just checked my total posts and they are going backwards! What the sam hill is going on? I had over 400 posts when I first wrote to you over three months ago. This morning I am back to 379.

First of all my account went back to zero when I changed ISP's, now it's counting backwards?

Magginkat, I think the only way you can lose posts is if your posts are deleted by a moderator or if you've posted on the Testing Forum. Posts there disappear on a regular basis, since they're just supposed to be tests.

Have you posted on the Testing Forum much?

I didn't even know we had a Testing forum!

I looked at all my posts and they seem to go back to the beginning when I first joined but something is amiss.

Of course I have no way over a 4 yr period of knowing what posts are missing. I have never been a prolific poster but I do know that the total was over 400 when I wrote to admin the first time because someone had mentioned that they thought that the PM permission was given at around 500. At that point I recall thinking "Oh well only about 50 or 60 to go".

I also remembered that when I changed email addresses, that I was at zero for a while. I had received notice when I changed IPs that I had to reapply or some such at that time.

I don't have the time or patience to count all posts or to check the threads I have been posting in to see if some are deleted.

It would not surprise me in the least in the politics forums because some people there disagree with me vehemently. However, I don't know who moderates that or if they have removed any posts.

I just think this whole darn thing is weird.

Maybe this has something to do with it?

http://www.able2know.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=63271

(Craven talking about how post counts may have changed due to some maintenance he did.)

I will tell you here what I have been telling you in the Help Desk (yes, you've been in communications with me).

1) People really have spammed with PMs, as in, let's see, the Nigerian email scam has been passed along via PM, as have pyramid schemes. BTW, it's not such a stupid or inefficient method as you may think, as programs exist to do just that. The Moderating Team has had to clean up after that kind of spamming before.
2) The number of posts needed to qualify for PMs varies due to a software algorithm. It has little to do with how long you've been a member of the site. The exact figure changes. I don't know it and I don't want to know it -- I don't want to hint around because, yes, spammers actually read topics like this and learn that information. I told you in the Help Desk what the ballpark figure is.
3) We have not pulled any of your posts. Chances are either that (a) like mac said, you may have been posting in the Testing forum, as that forum is pruned regularly by the software or (b) there could have been a change in numbers due to maintenance reasons or (c) perhaps you have miscounted. We do not remove Politics posts for ideological reasons, we remove them and any other posts by any members of the site if and only if said posts are in violation of the Terms of Service. Also, if you have a second account, the two post counts cannot be merged.
4) Long-term members are or should be aware of the PM restrictions and that sometimes they will be writing to someone who cannot write back to them. I just checked your profile and you do not list an email address there. In fact, there's nothing filled in there. Perhaps you'd like to put your email (from a throwaway domain, such as hotmail, gmail or yahoo) into your profile and then people can contact you and you will be able to write back to them.

Some sorta disconnect going on with folks upset about a particular feature having restrictions on a free-to-use website; no matter what anybody gets around here, by and large, they get more than they pay for.

Jespah, I do have my email listed in my profile. If you can't see it maybe that is part of the problem. It's always been there. I use Gmail, not my primary email, for that reason. You have been responding to me at my email address. I changed this to GMail when I was interrupted by Hurricane Ivan and have not had any other address since then. I left it with GMail because I never knew when another Hurricane would again disrupt & force me to move, thereby another email change.

I repeat.... I did not know that you had a test forum so therefore I did not use it. I have never posted there.

I don't have two accounts. I simply notified you that I had changed my email address, period.

I never tried to count... never had any reason to count. I accepted your numbers as accurate until this recent reduction. I do know that my account went to zero after the email address change. I didn't give it much thought at the time because I didn't know that it would change the entire account.

I do know that when another friend brought up the subject, after my address change, and I tried to PM the first time, I discovered that I could not. At that time I had well over 400 posts.... according to your figures posted next to my name.... not any counting on my part. I have no way of knowing if any of my posts have been pulled since I don't keep a record like that. I just know that the numbers you show by my name have changed and it has been a rather large change because I know that I have continued to post & the count has decreased not increased.

I'm sorry. I have never bothered to learn about how to spam in the methods you mention since it was of no interest to me, other than trying to avoid it in my own mail box.

I have been very careful not to trample on your TOS as I noticed from the beginning that a certain political party had an abundance of favoritism or at least the appearance since that party is allowed to insult, attack , etc., with no apparent restrictions, yet I have seen one friend banned because he apparently responded in kind. The favored party member was not banned.

Watch this thread and if things go as they normally do a couple of the select few will turn up to make snide comments about my posts.

I don't know who your moderators are other than now I know that you are one. I have never, to my knowledge, had any run-ins with you so I have no reason to believe that you would do anything like this. My opinion of you has always been that you are a great person and I have enjoyed your posts.

I don't know that any person did this on purpose. I am assuming it is a software glitch.

I do know that the number shown has been substantially reduced. I wonder if anyone else has noticed this reduction.

Of course those who have posted thousands of posts are not going to miss a few but for those of us who are not so prolific it makes a difference and a very frustrating one.

Personally, I would think that a 4 yr membership shows that I have no intention of spamming and makes more sense than counting posts. I see some people here that I would consider spammers because they seem to think they have to respond to every single post in a topic.

And by the way, it still makes no sense to me as to why anyone would want to spam via PMs. It seems like it would be a tedious project at the very least.

Did it have anything to do with the 5000 or so "better than Viagra" adverts I PM'd?

As predictable as the sun rise! And before I got a chance to finish my post!