Yes, that is indeed my main problem. The Private Topics plugin is far from ideal and personal messages offer more flexibility with respect to the ability to invite other users to the discussion.
But, after all those years, the long standing problems with personal messages are still there:
- there is no global tag filter. The tag filter in the sidebar only shows non-PM topics. You could create another link but it will always be per-mailbox.
- Tagging personal messages doesn’t work intuitively and is limited due to inconsistent implementation
- The UX keeps confusing me
- I don’t understand when a message is in Sent and when it is in Latest
- Wording is unclear
- I still find group inboxes hard to set up (e.g. Group inboxes not appearing)
- Searching is cumbersome
- Search for messages that involve (both from and to) a user
- You must add the search filter explicitly, except when you’re in messages, so it feels really siloed