Suggestion about site rules: PMs
 

Just a suggested modification to site rules, to capture usage of PMs.

My situation is that I regularly receive PMs asking me for "personal help". While I don't mind people sending me private communications, I do get tired of the way some members expect me to drop everything to help them with their urgent problems. I also believe, in a lot of cases, that people will get more useful advice if they just posted in the forum: for a lot of the questions I receive, I am not the best person to ask. I've lost count of the number of people I've had to tell "I'm not the best one to ask. Post your problem in the relevant forum."

My suggestion is to add something like the following to the forum rules.

Usage of the Personal Mail system

Avoid sending PMs to individuals if a post in the forums will suffice. PMs are not a substitute for the forums, and they are not intended to be used to ask for "personal help" or "personal tutoring". In most cases, you will get better help if if you post your questions in the forums rather than sending a PM to a member who appears a little knowledgeable - simply because more people get a chance to offer help.

i totally agree, posting in the forums is a good way to get feedback from a lot of people. oftentimes a certain person may not have the time or background to deal with your issues. from time to time i've actually gotten a lot of help from a lot of DIFFERENT people, and i believe i've never sent a single PM.

This sounds like a great idea, I will add it to the rules this weekend and make an announcement about it.

How would you manage enforcing this rule?

You can't always enforce rules, but making them usually reduces the number of occurrences. I generally reply that private help subverts the purpose of the forum, which is to disseminate information as widely as possible. The practice is so bad on another forum that I had it in my signature for a time.

The way to enforce the rule would be based on reports from people who receive contravening requests. As with all these things, it would rely on a judgement call by those receiving the messages, and the mods/admins who receive the reports.

My intent, in making the suggestion, is not to stop people sending PMs. It's to encourage people to consider posting in the forum first if appropriate -- which is the issue with most the PMs I am referring to. PM is a tool for people to use and enjoy but there needs to be some modest constraints on its use.

Although this doesn't happen to me as often as it used too, I do know what you mean. People also tend to add you on MSN/ICQ (or some IM) or perhaps email you for help. You might want to add that in to the rules, because some people might try and get smart about it, thinking that they can get away with it by using some other source of communication.

go to their house and kill them.

Possibly a slightly stronger enforcement that I would have envisaged. :beard:

I agree.

It seems as though people randomly pick someone that participated in a thread related to their question to try and obtain direct assistance. More often than not they request immediate attention, especially if they contact you through an instant messenger (Y!, MSN, etc).

Direct communication like this should probably go through the IRC room, or at best, to a thread within the appropriate forum so those with more knowledge on the subject can chime in and others with similar questions can benefit from the responses.