WANTED A friendly tip when communicating about classifieds

[BasilFawlty]

Of course it's no skin off my nose, but as a guy who has been running an online automotive-related forum for well over 20 years (yikes!), I have some very good advice: When you want to communicate your email address to someone - do it via the "Conversation" funtion, which is essentially a private message.

When you post your email address in an open forum, every spam bot that crawls the net (and they are legion) will collect your email which will result in even more spam emails than you already get. Send your email to someone via a private "conversation" instead.

And if you think being clever by using (at) or something similar to obfuscate that it's an email is going to fool the bots, think again. Bots have gotten wise to just about every trick in the book and will still recognize it as an email address. Best practice is to not post your email address in the open forum. (PS: I had to select a prefix so I chose wanted - because I "wanted" to give you some advice.
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Peace out...

 

[Telly Vision]

Great advise for those that can. However, I guess as being fairly new to the Forum, that option is not available to us. Don't know if there is some "threshold" we need to reach, but it makes doing what you suggest impossible. I look forward to when that is an option for me.

 

[BasilFawlty]

However, I guess as being fairly new to the Forum, that option is not available to us.

Hmm, that is a problem. I suspect the admin here might have permissions set such that newbies don't have permission to start "conversations?" I use the exact same forum software as here and I do allow any registered member to start a conversation. If that's not an option for new members, I'd urge the admin to change the permissions to allow that.

 

[Hagrid]

Same with me. I'm also new to the forum (4 days). I haven't found a private message / conversation option. I looked everywhere.

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[Tellthemride]

Same with me. I'm also new to the forum (4 days). I haven't found a private message / conversation option. I looked everywhere.

If you go to the profile page of the person you are trying to reach, do you see this message board option there?

 

[BasilFawlty]

If you go to the profile page of the person you are trying to reach, do you see this message board option there?

Profile posts are not private - anyone can see them.

 

[BasilFawlty]

Same with me. I'm also new to the forum (4 days). I haven't found a private message / conversation option. I looked everywhere.

It must be a privilege that you have to reach a certain level to have. Would be good if the admin would chime in to clear things up.