Yeah, there was a time where the forum was under frequent attacks from 1-2 very annoying spammers, who would post 20-30 junk replies and also IM spam. I guess this is why the post limit for private message was set higher than the default of 5 used on most message boards...

Just make some more posts and don't take it personally. The admins are doing their best to mitigate the spam and sometimes that means new members have to "prove" themselves in some automated way (like post count). Mods can't personally "look at my posts" for every new member to bypass the rules for them because "it should be pretty obvious I'm not a spammer."

This is no longer an issue. If a mod could delete this topic, that would be good.

GordonFreeman wrote:

This is no longer an issue. If a mod could delete this topic, that would be good.

Actually, I have been here for quite some time and did not know that I could send private messages. Maybe, there are more of us.

Thank you for bringing up the topic.

Sincerely,

Gene Wirchenko

Agreed - thanks for bringing it up! I'm not able to send PMs anymore (I have some from previous years, but can't do anything now). Vast majority of the time it's not a problem, but I suppose I'll keep trying to contribute and hopefully will get the privilege again someday.

Thanks to the mods for taking steps to control the spam. It's much appreciated.

Very much appreciated that the mods are taking steps to fight spam, however I've just run into the issue of not being able to reply to a private message I received. Being a long time Vogons forum reader/dweller I told another Vogons member my Vogons username and asked them to message me here (about vintage PC things). They messaged me but unfortunately it seems I can't reply 🙁 I don't know how easy it would be but perhaps it would be sensible to allow new users to reply to private messages that have received, although it's understandable they can't initiate a conversation.

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Sorry, but there is a limitation in the forum software that makes it not possible to enable reply to message received when you're below the postcount.

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Anders- wrote:

EleDip wrote:

Very much appreciated that the mods are taking steps to fight spam, however I've just run into the issue of not being able to reply to a private message I received. Being a long time Vogons forum reader/dweller I told another Vogons member my Vogons username and asked them to message me here (about vintage PC things). They messaged me but unfortunately it seems I can't reply 🙁 I don't know how easy it would be but perhaps it would be sensible to allow new users to reply to private messages that have received, although it's understandable they can't initiate a conversation.

Still working on up'ing my postcount so I can use PM.

Free bump!

Was wondering if anyone knows *roughly* how many posts are needed in order to send PM... but I can see you are at 17 posts right now and still unable to 😢 I guess I will figure out another way to reply to the person, rather than succumb to posting 17+ random-ish messages just to up my post count.

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Seeing how much inconvenience this causes, maybe the PM limit rules can be changed so that new members can send PMs, but either:
* Cannot send PMs to more than one recipient at a time
* Cannot send more than X PMs in Y minutes

This may still deter spammers, while not preventing legitimate new members from replying to a PM they received.

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I am a bit surprised though that members with few posts need access to the PM system.

even with the older "more relaxed" system in place. You would still need a level of activity before you got access to PM.

How did PM-ing get so popular in that you want to pm a new member ? I am a missing a use-case ?
I agree that people getting messages and not being able to reply to them is not an ideal situation, but I don't have a good solution at the moment to offer, as I don't want to relax the current requirement.

Maybe something can done after the board upgrade. as ideally it would be nice if you could reply but not start a new pm for example for the "restricted" case, but the forum software doesn't allow this.

Anders- wrote:

dr_st wrote:

Seeing how much inconvenience this causes, maybe the PM limit rules can be changed so that new members can send PMs, but either: […]
Show full quote

Seeing how much inconvenience this causes, maybe the PM limit rules can be changed so that new members can send PMs, but either:
* Cannot send PMs to more than one recipient at a time
* Cannot send more than X PMs in Y minutes

This may still deter spammers, while not preventing legitimate new members from replying to a PM they received.

Indeed. It's not like a new member is prevented from posting spam in threads anyway, so what's the point of preventing use of PM's? I just don't see the logic here.

You didn't see the stuff that was send to other by the "bad" people. I don't think spamming is the right term. It's more like harassment.

Qbix wrote:

You didn't see the stuff that was send to other by the "bad" people. I don't think spamming is the right term. It's more like harassment.

Actually, I did. Got a few of those myself. And, yes, you are probably right. Not everyone is as cynical as me and can shrug those images off.

Then again, they still can (and a few times did) post them out in the open where they would stay for a couple of hours before being deleted...

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I'm guessing no one knows the minimum post requirements to unlock pm then?