...send PMs to New Members? It doesn't seem right. I know of no other whay to have a private chat with a new member. Please help, or guide me. Thanks, gang! xx
It's to protect potentially vulnerable and young members from risk of people who may message them with mischievous intent. It wouldnt be hard for a predator to sign up, message a vulnerable person and try get private info. It's for your safety!
This is correct. Empty Closets is a support community. There are communities out there that aim to approach people for friendships, hookups, relationships, etc., but this isn't the case here. If someone is seeking support, they are free to post in any area of the forum, so people can assist with the question. If someone has a question but he/she is too embarassed by it, we have the Anonymous section. If someone wants 1 on 1 support, we have Advisors you can send a Private Message to. There is no good reason to allow everyone to message everyone privately - that would cause more harm than good, for the reason -Michael- mentioned. If you want to chat with someone, you can do so by wall messages. If you still want to Private Message someone, that is possible, but we require you to go through the Full Membership selection process first.
I used to be on a forum that allowed all members to private message, and had very few standards. It actually became a little disturbing and creepy. I’m a fairly kinky guy, but i often felt like watching a Disney film to cleanse myself afterwards. I think this is a much better approach
Im not going to go over what the others have said, just to add if you need to PM you can PM the staff if there are things that you need to talk about, or you have the option of a conversation with other members on your profiles. I know its not private and so there may be some things you don't want to say but most of the time, there are not lots of people that are just going to start reading other people profile posts.
What are the things that others have said? Because really, what's the point of meeting people, determining you have something in common (not all PMs are about hooking up), but I can'tsend a PM. It feels like gatekeeping for no reason.
Like i said, it's for safety reasons, as stated here and in the Code of Conduct. I suggest you read it if you haven't, as it explains the rules of the site and a bit of why they are in place.
Furthermore, there is no way to tell the person you want to speak with privately how to do so, because you'd be posting "personally identifiable information" and that's a violation of EC rules, as well. So, whatever I do, it's a violation of EC rules. All I want to do is PM another Member. The option is there. I try to send a PM, then it says I can't with no reason given. That renders it completely useless. My intention on coming back to EC wasn't even to *send* PMs - it was for support. I understand the reasoning behind those who try to PM vulnerable Members - totally legit, but then why does the PM function exist, and more importantly, when can I use it? Where are the rules listen that say how PMs work? Riddle me that.
The Code of Conduct does not explain when a Member can PM another member, or why they can't. That was my original question, anyway. Instead, I'm getting a default "read the Code of Conduct" as if it explains everything I need to know about using the site (which it does not).
You need to be a full member to send or receive PM's to anyone except staff members. You can send and get PM's from staff members whenever you want right now. You already meet the criteria to become a full member (50+ posts and an old enough account) so just send in an application (which is located at the bottom of the main forum page) and then in like a month or two when it gets approved you'll be able to get and send PM's to other full members, and you can share email, phone number etc. in those PM's. There's no way for anyone but staff to use PM's with regular and new members, you have to post on their wall instead. Based on previous posts from an admin I've seen, it's like this because apparently a while ago a pedophile was using this website to harass and try getting personal information from children, and since this is technically a charity not just a website that created legal issues for the site which can now be mostly avoided by limiting PM's.
Hey I can understand your frustration but nobody is intentionally attacking you, the rules are there for everyone's safety and whilst they can be restrictive they make EC the safe and supportive place that it is. If it doesn't fit with what you feel you need right now that's fine, but don't attack those that tried to explain but slightly misread your post. The purpose of EC is not to meet people in real life so the posting of contact details isn't an option until you become a full member as explained above. I'm sure if you embrace EC and it's rules you can find support and friendship here you just have to be patient.
The last paragraph is terrible. I am truly sorry to hear about that. Really. Ok, so we have to be vetted Full Members, approved my the hierarchy, which takes at least a month. I applied for Full Membership in good faith, in the first few minutes I revisted EC (for support) about a week ago. I am a former Executive Director and Treasurer of the first transgender focused 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization (that I set up, and got federal and state recognition for using the tax law knowledge I've acquired over the years). It serves a metro area of over 1M people. Unfortunately, due to the politics of the LGBT community in this region, I decided my HRT and college degree were more important after serving over two years in that capacity. I hope I am made a Full Member. I don't know what else to say.
I am sure in time you will be made a full member, in the meantime if you need some support could you try and post a thread and we can see if we can help or you can PM one of the staff members who could offer you some support.
silverhalo and Destin explained well the situation. To add to what silverhalo said, if you need 1-on-1 support, you can find a list of Staff Members here. Note that the Advisors are the ones marked in Dark Blue. Feel free to PM any of us, but they are the ones focused on support.
Hi, Eden. To add to all of the comments made by others, this might help: One of the things that makes EC different from most other online communities is that we welcome young teens who are questioning themselves, and we also talk about a lot of pretty graphic things (sexual practices and the like), but in a way focused on education and information. Many, if not most of the young people who use EC are vulnerable; they have no one to talk to and nowhere else to turn. Often they are in remote areas of the US or even other countries where it is dangerous to even talk about being gay. Unfortunately, there are an awful lot of creepy older gay men (and occasionally, women) who prey on younger teens, grooming them, building trust, and then taking advantage; either trying to meet up with them, or getting the kids to do things like masturbate on webcam. This is an epidemic problem, and ECCS president Martin is currently doing his doctoral dissertation on online safety practices, based in part on EC's pioneering efforts in the field. Prior to 2008 (before we were a nonprofit), EC had open communication and no restrictions on sharing facebook or other contact information. A fiftysomething guy had befriended a 13 year old (if memory serves me correctly) and was basically grooming him and was trying to make arrangement to meet up for a sexual encounter. The EC staff discovered this, and took immediate action (police became involved, the older guy got arrested, the younger person got some much-needed counseling.) As a result of that, the then-owners of EC, a large media company with deep pockets, contacted their attorney. Their attorney was a "sky is falling" sort of guy, and basically recommended even stricter restrictions than what we ended up with. The current system, which involves manual review by a number of staff members, and input from all staff members, is cumbersome, and time consuming, but helps us to identify potentially problematic behavior before those people have access to private messaging (and chat, once we get around to re-introducing it.) Additionally, there are a whole lot of other security provisions that go on behind the scenes, that we don't talk about, that monitor all activity and identify concerning behavior, which is then manually reviewed by the staff. Wait times for full membership are way longer than we want them to be ideally, but that's a function of, at the moment, having a very thin and stretched staff. That will be changing pretty soon. The result of the restrictions has actually created what is now probably one of the most unique communities on the 'net. Creepers generally don't bother signing up, because they figure out pretty quickly that they can't message anyone underage. People who are here for the wrong reasons generally show themselves pretty early, and are either encouraged to go elsewhere or have their privileges revoked. The byproduct of that is a community that is remarkably safe; people can share things here and for the most part, know they won't be attacked, that their information won't be used against them, and, perhaps most importantly, that they can talk about their lives and their experiences without anything being traceable back to who they are in real life (if they are following our security policy correctly.) Our hard working moderation team also does a fantastic job of keeping the communication civil and appropriate, and letting people know when their posts are unhelpful or inappropriate, and that, too, contributes to what makes EC the community that it is. Once a regular member is approved for full membership, then s/he has access to personal messaging, which is still subject to monitoring (both automated and manual) to ensure that inappropriate conversations aren't happening. Fortunately, as a result of our full membership vetting process, it is pretty uncommon (though it still happens) that we have difficulties with members abusing the trust placed in them in granting full membership. So... the lawyer's "sky is falling" approach resulted in a really restrictive policy that we would never have voluntarily chosen... but that policy has turned out to be a blessing in creating a really amazing community. When EC became a nonprofit organization in 2011, and the media company turned over the community to the nonprofit, the Board and admin team of the nonprofit reaffirmed the commitment to the existing security standards, recognizing that they have become an integral part of what keeps the community not only safe, but the comfortable and insular community that it is. We realize that people new to the community don't understand it, and more than a few argue with us about it. But as you've seen, it is not only the staff, but the *members* of the community who understand and appreciate how and why EC is run the way that it is. And basically, the board and admin team have taken the position of... it's not broke, so it doesn't need fixing. I hope that clarifies. If there's anything that is ambiguous or unclear still, please post and I or one of the other staff will try to clarify. Edit: One thing I will tell you: I see you have 119 posts, but you indicated you have just recently been active again. If most of your posts were from before, you'll need to continue posting and contributing, as we won't be able to approve for full membership based on posts that are 2 years old; we'll need to see current and consistent activity. So if you continue visiting the community and keep posting regularly, we'll see that during the review process, and hopefully it will not be an issue. But disappearing and waiting for full member approval before you post will be counterproductive.
