For any future users who end up reading this thread, I think it's worth explaining.
PM's are limited to users >5 posts to prevent "drive by spamming" via our PM system. Since we have initiated this rule, PM spamming has decreased considerably. Though staff can still PM a user if there is need for immediate contact.
If a user needs to contact the staff, there is the
contact form (linked at the bottom of every page), the "Report bad post" (linked on every single post), as well as the
Confidential Talk forum which we created specifically for user-to-staff discussion. So there are an abundance of ways a user can contact the staff other than the PM system. However, these methods of communication may not be readily visible to new users not used to our policies, so I think we'll be doing some editing to include more helpful/descriptive error messages and prompts.
We do not allow replies in the forum (which is indicated clearly in bold, red font in the sticky
rules thread) to reduce the amount of petty bickering. The marketplace is just an extra feature. We don't want Webmaster-Talk turning into eBay, but we like to offer our regular users a way to offer or pick up deals. Since the "if you're not interested, don't reply" suggestion wasn't working, we had to solve the problem one way or another.
As I can see, Pokeraddict, one of your other threads has been moved into our
Confidential Talk forum by cptnwinky. If you wish to further discuss this matter privately with the staff, then feel free.
