How do you handle unwanted personal messages?

[nathand]

Possibly a sign that I'm replying to too many posts lately, but I've been getting random personal messages that should have been posted to the forums.  I'm sure many of you see the same thing.  How do you deal with them?  Ignore them, suggest gently that they should post to the forum, report them as abuse?

[johnsold]

I usually suggest that they post to the Forum.  Typically they want me to do the job for them after some initial posts on one of the boards.  I point out that one of the purposes of the Forum is to share information and that sharing is lost when communication goes private.

On the rare occasions when someone does not take the hint quickly, I repeat the request and then ignore.

Lynn

[JÞB]

"Thank you for believing I can help you with your question!  I do engage many posters of the NI forums, It has been quite the learning experience for me.

I do understand that you may not be able to ask such a question publicly but, I would encourage you to use the NI forums publically.... You will not only receive the benefit of my knowledge but the benefit of the knowledge of the entire community.  I am only one person, the forum members have much more experience than just what I do."

Congrats- you have become a "mentor"-  SMILE

[altenbach]

I receive very few help request and ignore them all. There is also a relevant note on my profile page. 😉

[Ben]

Gently invite them to post in public where they can get more exposure.

Ben

[smercurio_fc]

There was a brief discussion on this when it was first enabled. A few suggestions had been posted in that thread.

[SteveChandler]

It's funny, I came here to post the same thing. Maybe there has been a rash of PMs asking for LabVIEW help. I have always just ignored them. Maybe I will start sending a friendly reply saying to take it to the forums. It seems flattering yet rude when I get these.

[altenbach]

Some requests seem rather random about topics I have never posted about and don't know anything. They just seem to phish some target names from the top contributors list. These I ignore, because it is clear that many others got the same PM.

On rare occasions, somebody simply points me to an existing discussion that I might have missed, but is right up my alley. If I have time, I will try to solve the problem and simply reply in the public thread. Also here, no PM reply is necessary.

I welcome any other PM if it is not a help request, but the chance that I reply is probably proportional to the amount of gold in the badge of the sender. 😉 I am not a chatty person!

Since PM conversations are not threaded(:() replying via PM just causes a bigger mess in the PM screens and it is almost impossible to keep things organized. It is not suitable for a serious conversation because the individual messages will be scattered all over the place. Tedious!

[aeastet]

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altenbach wrote:)

......I am not a chatty person!

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How is this possible with over 15K responces. It seems that you talk a lot just not one on one. : )

[SnowMule]

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@Steve Chandler wrote:

It seems flattering yet rude when I get these.

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:nod

I just ignore them here...

other forums of a more casual nature, I'll give a hint that I know what the solution to their problem is, but ask them to post to the open forums.  If it's a ridiculous request, my reply will consist of a "cool story bro" image or some other non sequitur.