PM autoreply or please-use-email message to sending user

[eldentyrell]

Hello,

For a multitude of reasons I do not use the forum's PM system.  I try to tell people to email me (my email address is public in my profile) but it's not working… I often discover a big pile of PMs that are weeks old and people get all upset and angry at me.  I even tried putting it in my signature and people still send PMs.

Is there any way to have the forum autoreply to people who send me a PM?  I'd just have it tell them "email me" and include my email.

If not, is there any chance we could have the forum add a setting where if you enable it and somebody tries to PM you they are instead shown a message saying "don't PM this user, they prefer to be contacted via XYZ"?  I guess it doesn't have to block them from sending the PM, it just has to display that message prominently enought that they aren't going to miss it.

Thanks, this would really help.

[theymos]

You could disable receiving PMs.

[Logik]

Assuming you were willing to trust my application with your login (which you probably aren't) I could create you a PM bot, or other custom mailing logic if you flicked me a BTC.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=154131.0

[whiskers75]

Wait a second, I'm the one making bots... He makes APIs.
Well, I'm not going to stop you

[🏰 TradeFortress 🏰]

Whiskers75 and Logik, you should partner up and start some very specific "bitcointalk bot consulting service"

[eldentyrell]

You could disable receiving PMs.

How?

[theymos]

How?

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=35;sa=pmprefs
Put a * in the text box.

[myrkul]

How?

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=35;sa=pmprefs
Put a * in the text box.

Instead of trying to edit theymos's settings, though, you should probably use this link, instead:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=42407;sa=pmprefs

[theymos]

Whoops. 

[whiskers75]

Whiskers75 and Logik, you should partner up and start some very specific "bitcointalk bot consulting service"

Who's to say we're not in cahoots already? 

[eldentyrell]

You could disable receiving PMs.

How?

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=35;sa=pmprefs
Put a * in the text box.

That doesn't disable PMs, it ignores them.  I can already do that.  In fact, that's exactly the problem.

[eldentyrell]

That doesn't disable PMs, it ignores them.  I can already do that.  In fact, that's exactly the problem.

So, I guess the answer is "no".

You can prevent people from emailing you by turning off email in your profile, but you can't prevent people from PMing you.

Sad.

[myrkul]

That doesn't disable PMs, it ignores them.  I can already do that.  In fact, that's exactly the problem.

So, I guess the answer is "no".

You can prevent people from emailing you by turning off email in your profile, but you can't prevent people from PMing you.

Sad.

You seem to have worked out a valid work-around.

Would be nice if one could set up an autoresponse, though.

[eldentyrell]

You seem to have worked out a valid work-around.

No, you are mistaken.

It doesn't need to be anything nearly as fancy as an auto-response.  Simply eliminating the ability for people to send me PMs would be enough -- that would force them to look for other ways of contacting me (they'll find my email address in my profile pretty quickly) instead of assuming I'm being a jerk and ignoring them.

[myrkul]

You seem to have worked out a valid work-around.

No, you are mistaken.

It doesn't need to be anything nearly as fancy as an auto-response.  Simply eliminating the ability for people to send me PMs would be enough -- that would force them to look for other ways of contacting me (they'll find my email address in my profile pretty quickly) instead of assuming I'm being a jerk and ignoring them.

Your signature includes the bright red words "DO NOT PM ME.  Send me email." This appears in all of your posts, and on your profile. The link to send you an email is right next to the one to send you a PM. I'd consider this an idiot filter, myself.

[justusranvier]

I often discover a big pile of PMs that are weeks old and people get all upset and angry at me.

When I get a PM the forum sends me an email containing the actual text of the PM. I think it's controlled by the "Receive forum announcements and important notifications by email." option. If you turned that on I don't see any way you could possibly miss PMs.

[eldentyrell]

Your signature includes the bright red words "DO NOT PM ME.  Send me email."

I am flabbergasted by your superhuman powers of observation.

Unfortunately there are plenty of ways for people to send me PMs from pages that don't display that message.

[eldentyrell]

When I get a PM the forum sends me an email containing the actual text of the PM.

…and I can't reply via email.  So I can't reply.  Hence, this thread.

This also doesn't solve the problem of their original message passing through the forum's PM system in the first place, which is another thing I'm trying to avoid here.

[myrkul]

Your signature includes the bright red words "DO NOT PM ME.  Send me email."

I am flabbergasted by your superhuman powers of observation.

Unfortunately there are plenty of ways for people to send me PMs from pages that don't display that message.

No need to be a douche about it.

As I said, this also shows up on your user profile. Is there anywhere else that I don't know about that a user can send you a PM from?

[eldentyrell]

Your signature includes the bright red words "DO NOT PM ME.  Send me email."

I am flabbergasted by your superhuman powers of observation.

No need to be a douche about it.

Actually I thought your statement of the blindingly-obvious contents of my signature was in the same vein, but I could be wrong.

Chalk it up to mutual unintended douchebaggery?