Removing the useless (?) Message button from my own profile page, will help make the “New Message” CTA more prominent:
Note that I’m suggesting that we remove the “Message” button only from your own profile, not everyone.
I mistakenly replied to a post about making it easier to sends PMs to a group, but that will be taken care of by a future fix. This is a briefer, revised version of that post.
Yes, I have never understood why there are two differently named buttons with the same functionality (except that one adds yourself as recipient and the other doesn’t)…
Why? What difference does it make? This is your own profile, why would such a tiny micro-optimization be worth even a millisecond of engineering time? What problem is being solved here?
I spend a fair amount of time there when I am handling team emails, I am kind of open to suppressing it on that tab cause it is somewhat confusing.
Why not remove it for all users on this tab though? That would be more defensible…
Truth be told, I’d love to see this changed too. I can’t tell you how many times I have started messages to myself by selecting that button and been chastised for it by discourse, and I’ve been here for a while.
Also, when showing people discourse one of the first things I show them is their own profile page. They are then immediately drawn to the MESSAGE button, thinking they are starting a new message to someone else. This causes that popup explaining that they are trying to write to themselves which is confusing and a bit off-putting.
So there is a problem to solve - not a major one, granted. A solution would be to not see it on your own profile or to simply have it work the same as the NEW MESSAGE button on your own profile, with no destination user prefilled.
Not sure I understand this - how do you start a new message to someone from their profile if there is no MESSAGE button?
It’s perfectly fine to send PMs to yourself, and it works. It’s a feature.
Sure - and I do it all the time, usually for testing stuff or to keep a draft of something I’ve written that I want to post later. But I’m not sure how many people will do that, and for those who don’t it’s confusing.
Anyhoo, this is not a big priority for me - I’ve gotten used to it and don’t mind explaining this to people when I’m showing them discourse.
I was focused on the Messages tab initially. But the more I think about it, the “Message” button can be safely removed from a user’s own profile in general.
I’m not sure I understand what you mean.
Normal users see the “Messages” tab only on their own profiles. So that’s the only place where you get two CTAs. As I noted above, I’m in favor of getting rid of the “Message” button altogether when you’re looking at your own profile. Why on Earth would you send a message to yourself?
Admins can see the “Messages” tab on other people’s profiles. On that page there is only a single “Message” button. The “New Message” button only appears on your own profile’s “Messages” tab. This is perfectly reasonable and I don’t see a change need here.
Sure. But it shouldn’t be a CTA (one of two, confusingly) on the Messages tab.
My answer to this would be that there is still the “New Message” button.
But I am also confused and I think it would help if someone could clarify the design decisions and the intended features here. What exactly is the difference between the two buttons (except that one is shown on all profile tabs and the other only on the message tab)? And why does one default to “message to self”? …
For example as a note to self. Or to start drafting a longer post. Or …
I should have removed that line from my response, as I addressed it later more coherently:
There is no NEW MESSAGE button when I’m looking at someone else’s profile. This only appears on my own messages.
I agree with that, which is why I proposed we change it for all users not just your own profile. Except as @tobiaseigen noted, I guess we only encounter that on your own profile anyways…
I started drafting this reply before the last couple posts. I’m leaving it as it is because you know how long it took me to draw all these arrows? 
Hahaha. It feels like Tobias and myself are using a different Discourse from Christoph and Jeff
Here is what a user’s profile looks like over here:
And, on the “Messages” tab on a user’s own profile, there are two CTAs:
Removing the “Message” button from a user’s own profile seems reasonable to me, and it will also prevent the confusion on the “Messages” tab.
OMG! 
Now I get it! And now I understand why the OP suggests to suppress it on your own profile! Please tell me that I’m not the only one who completely missed this idea! In that case, I think the OP makes complete sense. Alternatively, the button should read “Message user”, although that is not really a great alternative.
Thanks. That’s awesome! 
