Private messaging...

It's finally done - no longer do you need to utilize your email program (or disclose your email address to others) in order to communicate directly with other members. Starting now, all private discussions occur in a safe environment right here at DG.

Email works like the threads - just send a person the email from their member page, as always, and when they reply, their reply appears on your homepage, just like the thread watcher.

Your email address is now 100% secure and will never be revealed to anyone else, unless you specifically give it to them in the course of your discussions.

dave

Oh gosh, that's really nice, dave! I know I've hesitated to respond to emails from non-subscribers in the past, so now I can do so without concern. :)

BTW... will we get a notification on our personal email that we have a message on DG? Not that I don't log already log in several times throughout the day... :)

This message was edited Sep 17, 2004 7:06 AM

TF - you log off Dave's??? LOL Here I am at work once again... Hoping not to get caught - maybe I will get a warning first... Ha ha - nervously..

You will not get anything in your own inbox, only notification on the DG homepage. I might make a preference option that lets you get an email when you have something waiting for you, but we'll just have to see. I might also make it so that if you don't see something for a couple days, it then just mails you.

dave

LOL @ ncgardenaddict... I rarely log out, but do share SO1's computer from time to time, so he gets logged out a lot. ;)

Sounds good just the way it is, Dave; I was just curious. Thanks!

Well, the only problem I see so far is that I have NO access to the people I've sent messages to in the past or any way to track what I have sent and what I haven't sent. I email every new member a welcome message and I send out Happy Birthday messages, too. And that's on top of the other emails I send just to check on people, talk about plant trades and on and on. I send A LOT of messages out from this site. Where is everything I've already sent? I need to be able to see that so I don't duplicate a message to a new member. Or, if I send out a bunch of stuff in the morning and get interrupted, how will I know where I left off?

I am completely freaked out by this. I want all of my old messages back. I want to know who I've contacted recently to see if I need to check up on someone again. UUUuggghhhhhh. All of this because one person has an irrational attack of personal privacy issues?

This has the potential to inconvenience a whole lot more people than the other problem did.

I know it's not your fault, Dave. I'm just very frustrated right now. I always cut and paste my messages to the new members and I have NOTHING to go on now. Yes I can recreate it, but I don't want to have to type that whole message every time I want to welcome a new member. Isn't what I'm doing more important than someone else's obsessiveness?

Maybe this is a premature question, but will there be a way to clear old messages?

For occasional users like myself, the option to recieve it via my own email after a "reasonable" length of time would be helpful.

The sent-mail has always been hardcoded and impossible to delete from. Now that the new feature is in, the old stuff is even more inaccessible than ever. Nothing can be added nor removed.

dave

I was wondering how in the heck you got in done so quickly. I was going to write a "I'm not worthy. All hail Dave" post. Now you blew it by revealing the truth. LOL.

Seriously Dave, wonderful work. You are among the most responsive forum administrators. And I am on quite a few, every hour :-) I really appreciate it.

smiln32, give it a try. This is an additional feature, not a replacement of current email system. Now we have one more way to communicate. It gives options to members with different levels of privacy concern. Personally I love having this option.

Thanks, Dave.

Edit: May be I got ahead of myself here. PM is somewhat replacing the emailing system, isn't it?

This message was edited Sep 17, 2004 11:03 AM

Here Here!

I guess I didn't make myself clear. Normal for me. LOL! I meant that when I go to my page and see I have an email, after I respond or not, will it remain on my page so that in time I have tons of them there and have to scroll to the bottom to find the new ones? I'm sure this is about as clear as mud too. I just thought that maybe there would be an action I could take to remove them from my page like we used to do with watched threads. I haven't checked that one lately. Thanks Dave. It isn't a big deal, just wondered.

Ah, understood. :) No, it will not remain on your front page. It will only remain on there until you view it. Once you view it, it won't show up again until it has been replied to. It works EXACTLY like the thread watcher.

best,
dave

I tested it by sending myself test message. Very cool!

Is there a limit, Dave?

Okay, I have it now. LOL! Thanks Dave.

I also would like to be able to view the email's I have sent previously, as smiln32 said. Can you just add that to the page where you "View your private e-mail". I have needed to see those messages in the past and in the future might still need those that I sent before the change. Thanks Dave!

I was skeptical at first, but I played around with it and I love it!

When I went to my home page, there was the email I sent to a member earlier this morning. So I sent myself one and it showed up on my home page. I replied to it and when I went back to my member page the reply was in the same thread with the original email. TOO COOL!

This is much easier than trying to catagorize all correspondence in my email inbox. Dave's new program does it all for us!

Love it! Thanks.

Opps, I may have spoken too soon. I still love it, but it appears that replies don't show up on the home page? I've replied to the email I sent to myself several times and the only way I can get them is through my member page? Is that right? Or maybe it's because I'm talking to myself that they don't show up?

Golly gee Dave, your innovations just keep making the place easier to use and enjoy. TNX ~Blooms

ncgardenaddict emailed me and we tested the emailing to myself theory and I was correct. If you reply to your own emails, it doesn't show up on your home page, but if you get a reply from someone else, it does.

Just thought I'd let you know that it is working.

I can't believe you quoted Douglas Adams. Ha! I have a leather-bound copy of the 4 book trilogy on the top shelf of one of my bookcases. Too funny.

Ok, I'm not panicking. (deep breath) I'm calmly going to send some welcome letters to some new members. Some of you just don't have any idea how much I use the email system here on Dave's, so please be patient with me.

Carla, I think you'll like it. :)

Thanks for your support Joan. Sometimes, I just don't adapt well. :)

Its fantastic.

Dave, thank you. It's a great feature, I just know it will be loved, just like anything else, everything takes getting used to. I really like this site and it has to do with Dave, his family and his administrators. They listen and take action where action needs to be taken. Thank you all, I know that I haven't said that to any of you and you all deserve it. This year of me being active at DG has really made me know that I will never leave this place voluntarily (anyway).

Interesting functionality - ironically, I liked the old feature of receiving email -- I'm more of a create a folder in Outlook and sock it away type o' gal....

The Messages Sent feature was nice - in fact, it helped me one evening go through and post feedback for several wonderful people.

It'll be interesting to see how this goes - If someone receives a lot of mail or is gone for a while - I can see how this might clutter up the home page until everything is read.

That said, I do like the approach of experimenting with new functionality and soliciting feedback.

Cheers!

Yes, I agree with everyone that you are wonderfully responsive, and you have my respect.

Sorry.

Thank you, Carla. All is forgiven:-)

It' hard for us old dogs to learn new tricks. I can't say I'm over joyed with this new method but I need to get used to it. Like others... one thing that helps me when juggling lots of e-mails it to stash a certain topics in a folder. Such as: a large seed trade, when I can get 30 e-mails to deal with at once. It's nice to have them all in one folder and i can go down the line and reply to all those concerned.

I just checked in and had an odd notice above my watched threads that I had a private message. Freaky, I thought. so I clicked it to see what was going on and there it was. An email that isn't an email and a reply spot that includes the chance to send an image that we could not do through the old system! Very cool!

Now is there anyway to return to sent messages or to that same message at a later date if I want to send a second follow up on the same original?

Zanymuse, yes! Go to your member page and then you'll be able to click to get a list of all your email discussions.

dave

Dave, you are such a level headed young man, you never cease to amaze me. There must be a good woman or two behind you somewhere!! (just kidding)

For what it's worth one can download all private mail, and threads too for that matter, and file them in whatever folders one wishes. This might help answer several concerns raised in this thread.

I agree with poppysue's remarks. I do things a little different, I do use some folders but most of the time I add all my trades to my trade tracker, then I delete the email message. If I do it this way it is easy for me to keep up with. The way it is set up now it is going to be hard to keep up with all the trades. If you only do a few it might be fine, if you are dealing with a lot of people it might be hard. I would rather have the choice of how I get messages.

So it acts as a folder for each original message and all I need to do is answer it on that private "thread" ! cool stuff. makes it simple for me not to have to create folders and remember to save them. This definately works for me!

I fixed the empty subject problem!

dave