droneflyers.com
First Officer
Flight distance : 60709 ft
United States
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Just an FYI about PM's - so I had them on my big forum which I ran for many years (hearth.com) - and all was well and good most of the time. But I found out the hard way that people "act out" when they assume no one is looking! We never monitored this until I heard that one member was "selling his influence" on our site for cash and products. This would be akin to me posting AND PMing members here constantly and telling them to buy another brand, etc..
So, I had to nip that one in the bud and get rid of the member (who was a BMOC on the site!).....I also had to look, for the first time, at the PM messages to prove that he was doing it....and sure enough, he was!
So, I nipped that one and a couple years go by - I don't monitor the PM's, but next thing you know there were a vast number of "plots" building up in the PM system! Users found all the little "features" and were using them for:
1. Having their own newsletters which would only go out via PM to their own list.
2. Talking mostly about how drunk they were at the moment and posting images were were....well, you know!
This stuff didn't bother me too much but I only found out about it after there was a full fledged mutiny of about 12 members...who then used the PM system by the thousands of messages - telling other members that we sucked and to come to their new site that they were going to start.
It was a long story, but we managed to finally get it under control. But I learned an important lesson over and over again...give an inch and they will take a foot!
A lot of the PM stuff is based on the idea that people are using alter ego's on some forums....which is understandable if you are on the fifty shades of grey discussion boards. On the other hand....one of the things which has been learned (why Facebook makes most people be who they really are) is that if you are you, then you generally act more responsibly. Point is, if you want to contact a member privately, most people will give an email address...like mine is cissod at gmail.
There is/was a real need for PM's on my other forums since there are literally thousands of models of the stoves and fireplaces...so many various transactions, from parts orders to trades to sending manuals and paperwork, occur over the PM system.
We did put in a number of rules regarding it's use.
One of the other downsides of PM's is that a lot of information which we all could use...ends up going to only one person.
Obviously it's DJI's call to make...but they may not want it used for poetry or pictures of Obama with his middle finger showing. |
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