How many “you must check I agree to continue” Terms have actually read thoroughly?
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On top of what @Mittineague said, you need to read this entire thread. We’ve stated several have and yet they still need/want a way to contact the staff because they have a question.
Can you talk to these confused users and figure out where they expected to find contact info? My concern is we need to have more user data from these guys, specifics about where they got lost so we can put the signage in the right places, the specific places where they found themselves needing to contact a moderator.
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Well, if they could contact us it would be a lot easier for us to ask them 
I’ll start a Topic now
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Just an FYI. I’ve found that these users mentality is “I want help” and they rarely have the mentality of helping others in return so I’ll be shocked if we get a lot of feedback.
You can make an argument that those members wouldn’t be a great lost but it is what it is.
I’m hoping we get a few responses.
One data point is the private message button plugin developed by @lightyear for their forum.
https://meta.discourse.org/t/private-message-button-plugin/14317
May be the placement of button “Contact Staff” near “Create Topic” helps…
@Mittineague @cpradio @HAWK @JSey what do you guys think ?
Yes, we have that, or one very like it, there .
I don’t know how often it gets used by others, but I use it quite often to PM other Staff members.
I don’t know as it might make that top row a bit cramped with another PM button, but if that one could be made visible and working for all site visitors I think it would do.
I think it is really dangerous to put private messaging at the same level as public messaging. That sends a very strange message.
What is more interesting to me is figuring out exactly where these users are when they need this kind of help. In time and space, and on the site specifically…
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I’m interested in this. Can you elaborate on the message that you think it sends?
Mainly that the backchannel is as important to the site as the public channel, that sending a private message and sending a public message are both equally encouraged.
To me, the point of discussion sites (assuming they are public at all, of course, having a 100% private site is fine) is public discourse, not private messaging. The PMs are there only to support the private discussion in that they allow you to get backchannel clarifications and be critical in private.
I’m not opposed to giving new users different ways to talk to the mods, but I need to understand where they are, in time, in space, on the site, when this need occurs… and why the need arises.
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Weird, I have a completely different view of PMs. I see them as a way to be social with members on a personal level. Think of it more of a conversation you’d have on a phone call, or water-cooler talk that you wouldn’t want your boss to be a part of or a complete stranger for that matter.
In fact, I usually have 1-3 of these type of conversations going on weekly from time to time.
Sure PMs serve as support too, but I don’t see that as their “main” function. They are there so people can have “semi” private conversations (as obviously admins may need to access PMs to investigate problems – which is the only reason I put semi in quotes) that they don’t want the public to be reading or strangers to be involved in. From a social aspect, I find them necessary to build rapport both as a staff member with the community or as a leader in the staff to the team members who I oversee.
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Ah yup, I see what you’re saying.
I think it comes down to the science of community. While the goal is public discourse, in order to keep a healthy, engaged community, people need to form relationships that keep them around. That’s where I see PMs as playing a key role.
I never asked for details at vB, but I guess most that were inquiries from newbies were for clarifications.
eg.
The FAQ says that shouldn’t ______, but it doesn’t say how many times I can ______ before I get Banned.
Is it OK if I post this, “________”?
Where should I post about my combined PHP, HTML, CSS, JavaScript problem, in Getting Started OK?
That is, they don’t understand the forum’s policies and/or structure so they ask for clarification.
Being so familiar I have no problems understanding, and to me the various areas describing policy and purpose seem to have adequate information and are clearly written. But I guess to some newbies, maybe not.
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Wouldn’t be better to have a newbie area where they could post questions like that? "can I do this, is it Ok if I do this…’ Sort of like meta, but for new users?
The advantage is anyone who knows the rules could reply so it is not a targeted PM to one user who must then reply to that PM, helping only one user in a way that does not scale at all, where your reply is not helping anyone else ever. Making it public means anyone who is interested could reply (users teaching users) or any staff/moderator could reply.
That scales better and builds a public newbie knowledge base. If they go to ask “can I do…” And the suggested topics brings up the same question with a reply from 2 months ago… Much more effective than a bunch of PMs that nobody can see.
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You take them out of their comfort zone by doing that. They don’t want it to be public as they may feel it will be perceived as a “silly” question.
For some, it may be okay, but for many, they would not be comfortable doing that.
Even if that area was only visible to, say, staff and TL0 and TL1 users?
The process you describe (every new user sends private messages every time they have a newbie question) fundamentally does not scale.
How would they know? How do they find this “category”? Most of our users are still in TL 1 so that really doesn’t limit who can see it and limiting it that way seems a tad bit silly as your TL 2 and TL 3 are your “long term” members who know the rules.
All I’m trying to get at, is, many users will not appreciate having to ask their question publicly (in any regard – even if the category is limited). They will prefer a private conversation.
I’m not saying your suggestion isn’t good, it is good. But it there will be quite a few that will not want to use that method. We sort of have a category for that (its called Community). No one posts those type of questions in there. They are more than acceptable for that category, but I just don’t see it as something people will use that way (based on my experience).
You are missing my point, whatever Q they have should be in a place where they can find the answer themselves, first. That is what I am getting at. How do we improve the FAQ / signage for these people?
As for the users who will never read anything on the screen and must personally email someone to get an answer every single time … Eh, I dunno. You could force new users to take a quiz before posting to guarantee they read it… Quora was doing this for a time.
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I’m trying to say, that doesn’t matter. We’ve done that. We’ve simplified our FAQ/Terms, we’ve added common questions there that we received recently, we used to even have a “Support” forum on our vBulletin instance.
These users always send their questions by PM. Always.
So we can talk about updating our FAQ, adding a general category for these questions to live, but at the end of the day, 6 months from now, I’ll still have this request lingering in the back of my head to make PMing staff more accessible.
One thing to note, it seems since TL 0 doesn’t have the Notify X on flagging, nor access to PM, that if they are ever “attacked publicly” or “privately” (assuming they can receive PMs), that they can’t communicate easily with staff to get it addressed… (except for finding the contact email). – Just another thought that popped into my head.
TL0 can always reply to the standard welcome PM. And you should probably have a public contact email somewhere in your public FAQ or the site proper they could use (the welcome PM could also include this email if needed).
I dunno, the users you are describing seem beyond help in some ways. Perhaps a Quora like quiz before they can post that walks them through the FAQ and requires them to answer correctly before they can proceed, indicating they’ve indeed read the information provided?
If these users are so hell bent on out of band private messaging (and ignoring FAQs…), just make forums@sitepoint.org (or equivalent) easier for them to find.