Replying to PMs

[garnpet]

Please note that replying to a PM by hitting reply on your email program does not send the reply to the person intended - it gets emailed to me.  You must reply to PMs via the forum software.

As much as I enjoying reading all the PMs I am receiving, I will not forward them on to the correct recipient.  

[JetJumper]

Thats too funny!

[ciaus]

So the reply button that I just hit isn't the right one either?
Isn't it the Webmaster the one who routes all the PM messages?
Seriously though, from an administrative point of view all you need to do is change the reply to address on the notification email from the valid email address to something that  is not monitored, with a rule feeding straight to the trash then you won't see them.  This would not tell the sender that the message did not get to the intended recipient as it will go to the "unmonitored" email address and the SMTP protocol wont see it as a delivery failure.
Conversely you could set up the reply to address as an address that would generate a "user not found" SMTP error.  IE: 
Beyond that if someone hits reply in their email client to a message that says:

"***** DO NOT REPLY TO THIS EMAIL *****

You have just been sent a personal message by XXXXX on Ottawa Valley Aquarium Society.

The message they sent you was:"


then the thread will go away and you will have done your duty.

IMHO

Ciaus

[Funkmotor]

+1 to Ciaus.  If someone does mistakenly reply to a PM in an email, it should bounce.

I would have thought that any mistaken replies would go nowhere, and certainly not to the webmaster.  Regardless of what the site terms might say (and I have not checked them) there is a reasonable expectation of privacy in using PM's.  (The "P" is for Private.)

Even though I know it won't work I have reflexively hit reply before and done this myself, and I'm sure many others have hit the same trap.

edit:  Not trying to give anyone a hard time, but I do think this needs to be changed.

[garnpet]

All good suggestions, all not possible with the forum software that we are using right now.  It appears that there is only 1 email account associated with the forum - both for emails that are send out via PM and thread subscriptions and system messages that are useful to me. Changing that will unfortunately stop delivery of other forum email to the webmaster account that should be dealt with.  Hopefully there will be a better solution when we have a chance to upgrade the forum software.

BTW, the same thing happens when people use their email to reply to posts that they are subscribed to.

Don't worry, I am auto deleting any email with the subject of "Re: New Personal Message" which is how I am receiving them.  OVAS does NOT read the Personal Messages between members.

The bottom line, think before hitting any buttons.

[Funkmotor]

The bottom line, think before hitting any buttons.

Oh, no doubt.  Sucks that it can't be changed, though.

[washefuzzy]

If I have gotten this right you can answer to the PM by hit reply but can't answer by hitting their email?

[Funkmotor]

If I have gotten this right you can answer to the PM by hit reply but can't answer by hitting their email?

When you get an email notification that you have a PM, that's all that it is - a notification.  If you reply to that email, it goes nowhere.

To reply to a PM, you need to view the PM on the OVAS site and respond to it there.

[magnosis]

Depending what your backend is, here's a possible solution (though it needs a little effort)

- have the one email addr associated with the site (the recipient of all PM's) be an email alias
- make that alias redirect to a php script
- write a php script that parses the email header & subject, looks at the intended recipient, and forwards it

I can help with the PHP email parser, but will probably require access to the DB because we'll need to query a username and get back the associated email (or figure out the POST request required to route the PM to the correct recipient)

-or-

leave it as his and look at all the PM traffic while sipping a cold one

[garnpet]

leave it as his and look at all the PM traffic while sipping a cold one

As mentioned, it's only the ones where someones replies using their email client, not through the forum.  It's a couple a day and they are being routed to my trash bin.  Sometime people just don't read the DO NOT REPLY TO THIS EMAIL part of the email.

email message  ==>

***** DO NOT REPLY TO THIS EMAIL *****

You have just been sent a personal message by xxxxxxx on Ottawa Valley Aquarium Society.

The message they sent you was:

..........................

[garnpet]

BUMP!

[Hookup]

LOL!  Let me guess what happened? 

[garnpet]

Must be a full moon or something.  About a dozen in the past couple of days.

[HomerJ]

Must be a full moon or something.  About a dozen in the past couple of days.

Maybe emailing them to inform them about their "sins" instead of semi-publicly posting about their lack of reading skills would be more productive?? 

[garnpet]

Maybe emailing them to inform them about their "sins" instead of semi-publicly posting about their lack of reading skills would be more productive?? 

Not doing much good.   

[Brent Shaver]

Not doing much good.   

Could we not change the format for the auto emailer?  Take out the message body and name, only let the user know there is a message waiting when they come back to the forum?

[Hookup]

Not doing much good.   

Tell me you got my reply.. LOL.

[OVAS-Webmaster]

Time for another bump.

[OVAS-Webmaster]

Must be something in the water the past couple of days.   

PLEASE do not use your email software to reply to PMs. You can only reply to them using the forum software.

[NjOyRiD]

humm I'm bad for that lol