# Private Messaging



## nealtw (Aug 7, 2015)

I use PMs alot, I think but I am aware this is still the internet and things can get out so I try to write things that wouldn't embarrase me to much if they did.

Can privacy be garrenteed or should it be is my question. For the former we just have to look at Sony and the answer is likely no.

The reason I ask the latter part of the question is we have four members here that have never posted to a thread, theirs or anybody elses, so they are not here to get help or give it. So they didn't meet each other here. We constantly hear about people hiding emails that should be a record of dealings and we can immagine what kind of dealing some would like to hide.

When I thought this was just two people, I figured some married guy has a girlfreind, great. Then when there were three I thought , he's busy with two girls.
BTW there is a fifth that has posted here a few times.
I can't think of any reason five people would use a site like this only for PMs that dosn't sound good when said out load.

Thoughts anyone??


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## frodo (Aug 7, 2015)

admin. needs to have a peek at their pm

if all is on the up and up

leave them be,


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## oldognewtrick (Aug 7, 2015)

Bad people have been abusing technology since the beginning of time couriers, pony express, telegraph, telephone, mail, e-mail you name it. As far as I've seen, there's no way to moderate private messages unless they get reported. People who are intent on doing bad things, personally or socially, will find a way.


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## bud16415 (Aug 7, 2015)

My first thought was, say you are a high ranking government official and maybe you don&#8217;t want to use the government email system and maybe you have your own server at home that people kind of know about now so you might want to delete a lot of those emails. Looking to the future you could kill two birds with one stone by joining a DIY forum as I hear big old houses painted white require a lot of home improvements and until you move in you could use the PM for emailing a few friends.  

Just a thought I could be wrong.


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## Chris (Aug 7, 2015)

I've never been able to access pm's and don't think it is possible.


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## nealtw (Aug 7, 2015)

Chris said:


> I've never been able to access pm's and don't think it is possible.



Actually everything that is posted here belongs to whoever owns the site and they can do whatever they please with it. I appreciate they don't make that easy to read and they respect the word private.
Some sites say, they will read them in a case where abuse is reported.

So what constitutes abuse and maybe private isn't the word that should be used.
I guess, if asked, I would give permission in a second for someone to check mine  to see if I abuse the system. Like Frodo said, someone could be dissignated to take a peek, just to keep everything on the up and up.


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## havasu (Aug 7, 2015)

Are you referring to what you see when you click on "currently active users" on the main forum page?


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## Admin (Aug 7, 2015)

The top 4 with zero posts have only one or two private messages.   We cannot see the content, just the number.    So there is really nothing to be concerned about.   We are glad to have them, and never know when they will decide to jump in and ask a question or answer one.


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## frodo (Aug 7, 2015)

Admin said:


> The top 4 with zero posts have only one or two private messages.   We cannot see the content, just the number.    So there is really nothing to be concerned about.   We are glad to have them, and never know when they will decide to jump in and ask a question or answer one.




DING DING DING

WINNER<WINNER<  Chicken DINNER
:banana:       :beer:        :banana:


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## bud16415 (Aug 7, 2015)

I have received PM&#8217;s before from members some new members that never posted but wanted to comment on something I posted or ask a question about something they felt I could answer. There are a large number of lurkers on all web forums that are afraid to post. Human nature I guess? 

I always encourage people to go ahead and post something and sometimes they feel welcomed and stay around.


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## HighRoller (Aug 7, 2015)

bud16415 said:


> I have received PMs before from members some new members that never posted but wanted to comment on something I posted or ask a question about something they felt I could answer. There are a large number of lurkers on all web forums that are afraid to post. Human nature I guess?
> 
> I always encourage people to go ahead and post something and sometimes they feel welcomed and stay around.



That is exactly the issue, I just signed up today, but i was never afraid to ask a question or leave a comment. There are people who are afraid to post, fear of being denied or sounding stupid.


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## oldognewtrick (Aug 7, 2015)

Only stupid questions are the ones not asked


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## beachguy005 (Aug 7, 2015)

I would suspect that someone started an account in order to post a question but resolved it without the need.  I've gotten PMs that were really just spam and I would suspect the same here also.
I think we're now going to refer to nealtw as the boards Gladys Kravitz.:hide:


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## oldognewtrick (Aug 7, 2015)

beachguy005 said:


> I think we're now going to refer to nealtw as the boards Gladys Kravitz.:hide:




In today's world you can't be to careful.


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## nealtw (Aug 7, 2015)

Admin said:


> The top 4 with zero posts have only one or two private messages.   We cannot see the content, just the number.    So there is really nothing to be concerned about.   We are glad to have them, and never know when they will decide to jump in and ask a question or answer one.



They must be slow readers, they have been reading them for month. Or they are good at deleting them.
It's not hard to see one show up in PMs and then the the rest show up a little later in PMs. Almost every day.


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## oldognewtrick (Aug 7, 2015)

If it was anything to worry about, I'm sure agencies with 3 initials are already looking at them.


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## nealtw (Aug 7, 2015)

bud16415 said:


> I have received PMs before from members some new members that never posted but wanted to comment on something I posted or ask a question about something they felt I could answer. There are a large number of lurkers on all web forums that are afraid to post. Human nature I guess?
> 
> I always encourage people to go ahead and post something and sometimes they feel welcomed and stay around.



I have had lots of those questions in PMs too.

But for what reason would you tell a bunch of freinds to PM you on this site instead of just using email or gmail. Some times this site really slows down and I have sent members my email address to make thing go a little faster. But these guys don't seem to mind how slow it goes.


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## havasu (Aug 7, 2015)

I consider myself fairly knowledgeable working around the house but I can assure all that I learn something new everyday in here. For this reason, I'd like to thank the experts for taking the time to make this such a successful forum.


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## frodo (Aug 8, 2015)

while this thread is going..i would like to ask admin.
if it would be possible to tweak members profiles.  to make where they are from
mandatory  and displayed under their name.

just the state or country would be good enough.  it is hard to answer some questions when you have no idea as to the location
for different building codes


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## oldognewtrick (Aug 8, 2015)

frodo said:


> while this thread is going..i would like to ask admin.
> if it would be possible to tweak members profiles.  to make where they are from
> mandatory  and displayed under their name.
> 
> ...



This has been discussed before by management. The consensus was that it's more important to get a question asked than maybe having someone not join the forum by making location mandatory.


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## frodo (Aug 8, 2015)

oldognewtrick said:


> This has been discussed before by management. The consensus was that it's more important to get a question asked than maybe having someone not join the forum by making location mandatory.




I understand what your saying:beer:,  but just state,  not town,county, or address


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## beachguy005 (Aug 8, 2015)

It wouldn't really matter because one could just put in any state they want.  I've said I was in Florida but the reality is, I could be in Russia and just here spying on all of you.


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## bud16415 (Aug 8, 2015)

beachguy005 said:


> It wouldn't really matter because one could just put in any state they want. I've said I was in Florida but the reality is, I could be in Russia and just here spying on all of you.


 

Anyone can lie about anything on line. The nice part about a DIY forum or one about making bread at home or one about people that suffer from constipation is that there isn&#8217;t a great deal of motive to lie. Also there is not a lot of interest in what others have to say unless you really do suffer from constipation. Knowing you live in Florida I actually think helps in answering your question or taking your advice. It&#8217;s not the most important thing but it is one more piece of the puzzle. 

There is a current thread running where someone wants to build a house on stilts. After a week of talking about building codes and such the OP tells us they don&#8217;t live in a country with building codes of any kind and anything goes. I never thought to ask as the materials and terms they were throwing around sounded 100% UsofA or our friends to the north. If anything someone asking for advice in a location we know has no codes should be more thought out IMHO. 

With that being said I don&#8217;t think anyone should be compelled to fill in a location if they don&#8217;t want to but I could see the admin writing the code so when you sign up if everything is blank and you hit submit having a window pop up that says &#8220; welcome to the greatest DIY home improvement site on the internet. We see you didn&#8217;t add a location or any information about your skill levels etc and that&#8217;s fine because we also welcome Russian spying on us pretending to be from fla. But if you want to fill out the information it would really help the people that will be helping you solve your problem. You never know someone might be in your reegion and be able to recommend something very specific to your needs. By all means never give your exact location but a geographic region helps us a lot. If you want to fill it in hit (return to info), if not hit (Let Me In!)
Again welcome to the forum and please take the time to write a short introduction about yourself if you like. If not please start a thread and ask away. One more note for a new member. The search feature works great as many topics have been discussed in length and you may have already done that when you were still a lurker. If you didn&#8217;t find your answer but found a thread that is very old please start a new thread rather than digging up the old one as that sometimes confuses the masses. If something in that old thread is important to your question by all means please start a new thread and link us to the old thread as well in that new thread. Also never forget a picture is worth a 1000 words and pictures are not required but they really help most of the time they are easy to do and there should be a sticky thread at the top of the general forum explaining just how to add a photo. Ok welcome to the forum.&#8221; :beer:::banana:


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## beachguy005 (Aug 8, 2015)

I agree with what you're saying bud.  There are lots of questions that can be location specific.  My attitude in today's digital environment, give them as little as possible. 
It's not about guilt, innocence, or paranoia....it's just about collection, and we know it's being collected.  It's going to be out there forever.


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## bud16415 (Aug 9, 2015)

beachguy005 said:


> I agree with what you're saying bud. There are lots of questions that can be location specific. My attitude in today's digital environment, give them as little as possible.
> It's not about guilt, innocence, or paranoia....it's just about collection, and we know it's being collected. It's going to be out there forever.


 

I agree, I watched a piece on how seemingly unimportant information when combined with other information builds a bigger and bigger picture. Think about you go grocery shopping and use your advantage card to save a couple cents. Now they know every item you bought you pay with a card so they have a record of when and where you are at every time the card comes out. The hours you work are known in some system. What you type on line. Every store you go in or drive past you are being filmed. If you have a smart phone all that data and GPS information. What sites you look at. And on and on. The biggest one I think is the one everyone is in love with sites like facebook and twitter. They dont have to look for information people willingly type it in. Put it all together and if they want the big picture of you all they have to do is look. 

The TV show person of interest is not that far off. 

I figure its not that hard to get my general location so having it on here isnt adding much.


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## frodo (Aug 9, 2015)

beachguy005 said:


> It wouldn't really matter because one could just put in any state they want.  I've said I was in Florida but the reality is, I could be in Russia and just here spying on all of you.




thats very true,  would not make since if he is seeking help,  but true


I am not worried about it.
I belong to 2 gun forums,  AND a 2nd Amendment org.
buy ammo online.  etc etc..

My name is ALL up in their computer, I dont care, I have done nothing wrong
they got my number back when they ran a top secret clearance on me.
their file must be thick by now


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## Chris (Aug 9, 2015)

Once I started my business I gave up on hiding anything. If you look for it you will find everything about me online including my SS. When starting a business your SS goes everywhere and in everything. It's ridiculous.


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## joecaption (Aug 9, 2015)

I'm with frodo on this one.
How many new post have we all seen asking where to buy something, how deep should my plumbing, plumbing, wiring, ECT. be, do I need a permit, how many outlets can I have on a circuit, where do I need GFI's, how much insulation do I need, ECT. with no location in there profile.
On one site I've been banned for even daring to ask there location, even though other posters and even the mods do it all the time.
There thinking is just pass on ansewering the question if it depends on there location for the right ansewer.
What since does that make?
Most DIY's have no clue why location is important.
So all there going to get is conflicting reply's by people making well intended guesses.
What goes that going to do them?
One first time poster had there location on another site listed as VA. I PM them and offered to stop by and help them with a siding issue they had if they where near me and I'd bring my brake.
They complained to the mods for whatever reason and I'm banned again for asking where they where.
Never again.
Funny because all the advice they where being given was from people who had never done siding before, and was wrong.


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## oldognewtrick (Aug 9, 2015)

Joe, I can assure you that you will never be banned here for asking a location. 

And thank you for taking time to help others.


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## slownsteady (Aug 11, 2015)

It's funny to think of Bud as the new kid on the block, but i can't even remember what info about using the site was available to a newbie when I signed up. And i don't know if Highroller is still reading this, but maybe he can tell us if any instruction was available to him as a newbie. Otherwise, I kind of like Bud's idea, but it has to be short and to the point.


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## nealtw (Aug 11, 2015)

Perhaps Square Eys' Ten Commandment Should look more like rules than suggestions
http://www.houserepairtalk.com/showthread.php?t=4115


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## slownsteady (Aug 12, 2015)

Ah yes, I remember it all fondly now. Actually it's not a bad introduction. Maybe just add a little more instruction about pictures ( or a link to a tutorial on posting pictures). And maybe an eleventh commandment on the advantage of posting your approx. location.


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