new thread
To limit inappropriate use of the Hyperboard's mail server, we now only process private e-mail to users if the mail comes from a member of the users' directory or from a regular user of the board.
If you have been posting without filling in the "e-mail" blank, and if you wish to be able to write others, you should start filling in that blank when you post. Otherwise, the system will not recognize your e-mail address when you try to use the mail server.
Bill (site programmer)
Could this possibly include me? Sometimes I remember to put my
email and sometimes I don't.
It could include you if you forget more often than you remember! :) Most likely, if you are using your email regurlarly, the system will recognize you. And remember, when you put your email in, it remains unseen on the board. So, you are not giving your email address away. And, everyone who receives something through the emailer has the right not to answer. If you do answer, then you are giving the one who emailed you your email address.
Robert
You are probably right!
Is there any advantage to being on the directory of users?
The main advantage is that we get to see your mug and mane whenever you post, and if you have a home page, a click on your mug will take people to it. So it's about making yourself better remembered and more well known. In any group, being seen is going to buy you some additional level of respect and credibility with some of its members. People like to "put a face" to a name; it comes off more "human".
Minor advantages are that it reserves your handle in case someone else comes along and wants to use it, and that you can use the mail system to write others without having to convince the system with your recent posting activity that you're a current active user.
What it does not buy is any different treatment. We've never considered the board itself to have "members". It has "users". The users' directory is just a collection of those users who have chosen to be listed.
You do have to be a user to join it, though, and Pete sometimes has to reject people who apply but who we've never seen post. Some of them mistake the directory for "registration", which some sites make users do in advance. (Victor is adamantly opposed to ever making people register before they can post here.)
Bill
