As discussed in No user PM access this thread/vote is intended to encourage a change to the default settings to allow TL0 users the ability to PM moderators if needed.
It may well serve to keep new users from becoming frustrated as they’re unlikely to understand why they can not perform such a simple task and it is assumed the moderators job to help direct new users.
A simple core setting is pictured, “allow new users to PM moderators” as preset to allow but toggle off if not desired.
As the referenced topic suggests, there the feature is provided by Allow-pm-to-staff. As the humble author of the plugin, it doesn’t seem like it’s being used by lots of people. And I’m pretty sure that only one of them has given me money to produce or maintain it.
So, it does seem like a reasonable request, albeit one that it would appear very few people are interested in. Perhaps this vote will prove me wrong…
I mentioned in the other topic as well that this is already possible without using a plugin if you set the moderator group’s ’who can message this group’ setting to ‘everyone’ then it allows even those people who aren’t in a PM allowed group to PM the moderators group.
However, it is a little obscure to set up as staff, and the message button itself appears on the moderator group page which may not be the easiest place to find it.
New users are generally only at TL0 for around 10 or so minutes after reading a handful of topics, so it may be too brief a window of time for many to want to PM a moderator (possibly why this isn’t requested more). Though it could be more useful to sites with more restricted PM thresholds, or where it’s disabled completely.
Maybe have this changed in core as you suggest to change moderator group to everyone by default and add a button to the about page for messaging Site Moderators. Most users are apt to click on a moderator’s name otherwise in an attempt to message a team member
Though still think @pfaffman plugin should be added to core.
Jay I imagine most are unaware of your plugin & if most users either complete the tutorial or the site defaults to tl1. There more likely to be unaware. Plus if new user becomes frustrated they might not continue to become tl1 and leave the site entirely.
OH! Hooray. Sorry that I missed that. This means that I can stop supporting this plugin.
Oh! Does the current group setting allow sending a message only to the entire group? If so, I guess my plugin does still have a place.
Likely 9 minutes more than needed to loose someones interest too, we live in a give it to me now society and people don’t have a high threshold of tolerance for 
and will just walk off.
The people at the controls here are web/PC people with a lot of time to be in the know, as such are likely out of touch with non web/PC people who expect simple things to be simple, like signing up and being able to send a PM to a moderator, now, I get some moderators may only want to dictate, or operate in a non customer care relationship, or more simply as Jays put it in a
or helpful manner, and that’s fine, each site is responsible to pick the type of moderator they want managing their users, but I suspect in large part most users are rather simple, adhering to KISS, keep it simple stupid is my preference.
The irony is I have to work so hard to point it out
Honestly, one single user lost could have brought in 10k others, I had a syndicated radio personality come into a forum I managed before, I didn’t know him and didn’t take the time at first to get to know him, the first impression I gave was he was not important, I regret that and have learned from it to try to make sure each user is heard, this request is made to that end.
I haven’t tried a test to verify if it would let you pm a group member directly of the group or not. I think it would depend on if Group DM\pm so to speak would allow a person to use “message” on a profile as the group allowed contact on an individual level.
Going by what @JammyDodger said about the “message group” being kind of hidden in the group page suggests trying to message a member directly. Will likely route through a pm vs group allowed. I could be wrong though. Maybe in the morning will spin up a test after disabling your excellent plugin.
Confirmed with your plugin disable and moderators message set to everyone. No option to direct message(pm) a member on the about page. You can only message the Group on the group page.
Even the About page imho should be 3rd item on the sidebar as you need to press more to find it. Or Alternatively even have about in the user menu.
Ah, then I guess my plugin is Really Essential. 
It really is, and it absolutely should be in the core. My guess is that the only reason there isn’t more demand for this is because the new users that really need(ed) to contact a mod failed to do so and just silently disappeared. I have the advantage of a large user base imported from my previous forum with helpful members that @mention me when I’m needed. Before installing Jay’s plugin I was constantly getting pinged about new users that were trying to contact me and eventually posted in a public topic that they couldn’t do so.
Exactly.