Adding a Paywall option for personal messages

[OgNasty]

While we can currently disallow personal messages from newbies, it might be nice to implement a feature where you have a little more control over who can send you messages.  For example, you could set a paywall so that no member can send you a personal message without sending x amount of BTC to y address, or set different amounts based on member level, etc...  You would of course need to setup some sort of list of members that don't have to pay to message you, or you could perhaps base it off your trust network.  This way, you wouldn't get spammed with nonsense you don't want and those who are serious about contacting you can pay a small fee to do so. 

[PrimeNumber7]

You can already do this in a round-about way via earn.com

You could direct users who you don't wish to contact to your earn.com profile, and would need to pay a predetermined amount of money that you only receive if you reply to the email. If you do not reply, I believe the amount is refunded back to the senders earn.com account.

You could set your personal text or signature to say to contact you on earn.com if you do not respond to a PM within 12 hours, or to reflect that a message via earn.com will result in a quicker response.

[OgNasty]

You can already do this in a round-about way via earn.com

You could direct users who you don't wish to contact to your earn.com profile, and would need to pay a predetermined amount of money that you only receive if you reply to the email. If you do not reply, I believe the amount is refunded back to the senders earn.com account.

You could set your personal text or signature to say to contact you on earn.com if you do not respond to a PM within 12 hours, or to reflect that a message via earn.com will result in a quicker response.

I don't want to use earn.com or rely on 3rd party services for Bitcointalk activity. 

[SaltySpitoon]

Completely serious question to be taken at face value. Do you have an issue with PMs from random people? I get one random spam message from someone maybe once every two or three months, and maybe another questionable whether they should be contacting me message in addition in that time frame. I typically just don't reply and don't feel inconvenienced by it.

I'm not asking you to justify the request, I guess just giving you an opportunity to explain why its necessary to others like me that don't receive much in the way of junk pms and may be questioning why it is worth requesting dev time towards what may look like a very minor issue to others.

[actmyname]

I don't want to use earn.com or rely on 3rd party services for Bitcointalk activity.

Would you be opposed to the use of a script or local tool in order to reach the same outcome?There have been times that I have also been exposed to a huge volume of private messages within a short duration, so I can only imagine how bad it might be for Og. Though, it doesn't seem like an expansive-enough issue across the forum.

[PrimeNumber7]

I don't want to use earn.com or rely on 3rd party services for Bitcointalk activity.

Would you be opposed to the use of a script or local tool in order to reach the same outcome?

The difficult thing with using a script for this purpose is there is no way to display information to a party who is wanting to send you a message.

One solution may be to develop a script that instructs the sender to send payment to an address to expedite a response via automatically replying to messages from people who don’t meet a certain criteria. A unique address would need to be used for each sender so you can keep track of who has paid. The script could highlight who has and hasn’t paid, although this would be rather complex to create.

[actmyname]

The difficult thing with using a script for this purpose is there is no way to display information to a party who is wanting to send you a message.

One solution may be to develop a script that instructs the sender to send payment to an address to expedite a response via automatically replying to messages from people who don’t meet a certain criteria. A unique address would need to be used for each sender so you can keep track of who has paid. The script could highlight who has and hasn’t paid, although this would be rather complex to create.

Delete message and reply with "Send BTC to this address: ___" until respondent replies with a txid within the message that is satisfactory. (or if the user is whitelisted)
Then, add them to a whitelist if not already.Alternatively, replace the replies with a central message on the profile page. This assumes that users will respond with a txid immediately after sending it, however, as foreign parties can intercept by feigning ownership, this can require a signed message (perhaps that of the txid itself)

Further complexity expands... but a user-created solution should be better than a forum-wide one to satisfy a very small percentage of users.

[OgNasty]

Do you have an issue with PMs from random people?

I suspect they aren't "random people" but trolls who message me daily from whatever alt they created that day.  Answering your question though, Yes, I get a ton of PMs.  My PM box is in the thousands of pages.  Enough that I would set a paywall if I could.

Would you be opposed to the use of a script or local tool in order to reach the same outcome?There have been times that I have also been exposed to a huge volume of private messages within a short duration, so I can only imagine how bad it might be for Og. Though, it doesn't seem like an expansive-enough issue across the forum.

I wouldn't want to do that because then I'd be spending more time reviewing code updates than I would ignoring PMs.  I'm sure you can imagine how bad when you look at the amount of time people like Vod have spent vying for my attention.  I'm heavy with the block/ignore buttons nowadays and I'm sure that only exacerbates the issue.  However, with the amount of established users that have fled this site, maybe doing something aimed at their forum experience might be a way to retain some value here.

[TheBeardedBaby]

Interesting, wonder whom shall we ask for new features, theymos or the developers. Is it theymos who approves all the new features (as he pays for the job to be done), maybe this question should be addressed directly to him then?

[OgNasty]

Interesting, wonder whom shall we ask for new features, theymos or the developers. Is it theymos who approves all the new features (as he pays for the job to be done), maybe this question should be addressed directly to him then?

It seems most in this thread don't believe this is a worthwhile feature, so I don't think it deserves any special attention from theymos.  If others like the idea and would like to see it implemented, this would be the place to voice your support.

[TheBeardedBaby]

Interesting, wonder whom shall we ask for new features, theymos or the developers. Is it theymos who approves all the new features (as he pays for the job to be done), maybe this question should be addressed directly to him then?

It seems most in this thread don't believe this is a worthwhile feature, so I don't think it deserves any special attention from theymos.  If others like the idea and would like to see it implemented, this would be the place to voice your support.

I'll tell you one thing, if nobody takes the responsibility to push Epochtalk forward, i don't think we'll see the forum software finished before the last Bitcoin is mined.
Your thread has bearly 190 views (far less unique ones) so basically your idea has almost no exposure. Your problem (and suggestion) is more related to the early adopters than to those like me, so for me is not an issue, but seems like a good solution for such problems.
I'm not a programmer (I can do basic C++ from what I learned from the Uni) so all i can do is to revive this section and try to bring the attention of the others and hopefully get a quicker results
Any suggestion is good. I'll mske a list, for now you are a number one.