I had an email address posted in my profile in the "old" system and I just assumed it would carry over to the new one. So add my vote to allowing us to choose this option on an individual basis. I don't mind if people email me and I never had serious problems with Spam from this feature before.

It's not multiple steps. You click send an email, type in your message and click send. That's it. In fact it would be less steps than before if you think about it. And the benefit is that spammers can't see our addresses. Just because it hasn't happened yet doesn't mean it won't. I think Randy is showing good foresight.

Got it thanks

No stimpy, it's not that easy - and i want one-stop email like i had before. And as others have said - on this thread & others - if we choose to have our email address accessible then that's our decision.

Before if others didn't want theirs exposed (or if they were ok w/ it) it was an option - on/off - and that worked. Now it's a multi-step process. That takes time - mine is valuable, and I get a LOT of messages from FTers.

And others get a lot of emails and/or PMs as well, especially the more experienced & well-known FTers. Right now I'm lucky that I had a # of folk's email addresses already stored of folk I deal w/ on a regular basis (like yours). Otherwise, it becomes a major hassle sending messages.

It ESPECIALLY becomes a hassle for those who are planning dos - you can say 3 clicks but if you were planning the London MegaDo like sandiego1K last year, that's 330 clicks every time she wanted to send out an email re: the Do & there were a lot of emails towards the end. And she wouldn't have had the time to do it all that way.

If you don't want to give up your email address & want to work through PM, then you have that right & can just set it up that way. But for the majority of folk who prefer to have it accessible again like it worked before we ever switched to the new program, we would like Randy to make the switch to the way it was. Meets both your needs & ours.

Let's see. The old way you click on the mail icon for each person. So that's 330 clicks and 330 popup windows and 330 clicks again to send the address to your mailer. The old way doesn't seem very efficient to me. For such mass DO mailings, wouldn't it be more efficient to send one message to the thread asking everyone to email you? Then your local mailer could deal with it. You could even write a script to do it automatically if you your talents lie in that area. Then only the people who want to get mail from you will respond.

Believe me I want and need to get instant email working again. So far my proposal seems to be the best way to have that happen and prevent spammers. But I'm all ears!

No stimpy, once I have someone's email address (which was a single click under the old system), I could store in my own electronic address book, make groups, etc., and it was easier, at least in my opinion. And didn't require my going through additional steps.

And yes, some could post & say email me, but because of folk traveling not all read FT every day or check every thread, and in some cases the Community folk have had to send out calls to others asking if folk know how to reach some of the people, something they didn't need to do under the old email system.

I, and others, believe that it should be our decision whether to have our email addresses accessible & to take our chances on getting spammed (which rarely happened), and for us, the old method worked fine.


stimpy, I think we both want to accomplish the same thing here, hence your original post in a dif thread saying what a pain it was to have to access FT/PM to get your messages (and one reason why this thread was started as well), and my suggesting you post in this thread.

If Randy's team comes up w/ a similar easy method, that's fine, whether it's one they design, one you suggest or another person does (someone else actually had a solution as well; can't remember the thread). Doesn't matter to me whose method they use, as long as the option is again available. And right now it's not. Unless you already had someone's email address in your address book, PM is currently the only method available to reach someone - and it's inconvenient & takes up time, which was both of our original complaint.

Hope now that Freddies are behind us hopefully Admin can decide that email can be turned on. ^

Those that wish to use it and display their real email (like me) can do so.

Those that wish to PM (unlike me) can opt not to.

Seems simple enough?

Right now it is a disaster to contact anyone. Indeed for me impossible, as I have PM turned off.

I'm bumping this up because

a) there are a gazillion threads on the reputation thing & this is getting lost in the mayhem (and if anyone responds, then please don't take this OT);

b) I would like it to be seen/addressed by Randy, and I think the solution is as folk have said - for those who are willing to allow our email addresses to be shown, turn the option on; for those who aren't, keep it off. Cheers.

bumping this up cuz Randy's 'back' to FT & hopefully he can review/make a decision, but not sure how long it will take him to get to this thread cuz it got pushed down by the various reputation, old threads being ressurected, etc, and don't want it to get lost in the shuffle. cheers.

For what it's worth, I've just been through the 'throws' of organising OZFEST 2004 (see: http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/showt...34#post2846434). For this I needed to stay in touch with probably 30-40 FT'ers.

I started using the FT system and it didn't work for me:
- only 70 messages total allowed
- only 5 can be contacted at the same time

After the first go I started asking people to email me a private address so I could set up a 'Group contact list' within my own system. Towards the end of the exercise I was able to reach 90% of the people with one hit!

During the process I also had to delete many messages, just to make sure that my FT 'inbox' stayed relatively empty...

I'd like to do constructive things like this for FlyerTalk as well as complete the user interface and even get to the final speed enhancement but alas, some members have elbowed their way in front of you - how rude. And by the time i take care of their 'needs' it's likely i have another magazine or other deadline to attend to and this gets puts back farther on the agenda.

So let me get on this because maybe with some luck i can get to this quickly. What's that you say? Time out everone and then I'll have the time to truly devote to FlyerTalk? Not a bad idea, I'll have to give it some thought...

Thread closed because i think i have what i need here.