One of the benefits to being on a board like this is that all members are now contactable through the private message system. You do not have to have your email visible or available in order for people to be able to contact you, so you can maintain your privacy.

You can set whether you would like to receive PM's and how you would like to be notified following the instructions HERE for setting your board preferences. We would recommend setting it so you can receive them, at least for the first while. Then if you find them annoying you can always choose to turn them off (though managers will always be able to contact you by PM).

There are 3 main ways to get into your PM area:

1. You can either go through the User Control Panel (UCP) at the top right of the board under the banner:


then click on Private Messages under your options on the left:


2. The more direct route is to click on your 'x new message' area at the top left of the board under the banner and to the right of your login info:


3. If you've received a notification of a new pm either by email or popup (based on how you've chosen to be notified in your Board Preferences) you can follow the link from your email notification or click 'go to inbox' from your popup notification.

The first will take you into the 'Compose Message' screen. The second and third will take you to your inbox.

Once in your PM Centre you will see your PM options on the left:


From here you can choose:

INBOX:
the default incoming folder, which contains a list of your recently received Private Messages.

OUTBOX:
As long as the recipient(s) have not yet read the message, it will stay in the Outbox. You can edit messages after sending them as long as they are in the Outbox and the recipients have not yet read them.

SENT MESSAGES:
As soon as someone reads the message it will be archived to the Sent messages folder.

COMPOSE MESSAGE:
The general controls for composing a private message work in the same way as composing a message or a reply on the message board. Put in your subject line, type your message and format it how you wish, then hit 'submit. However you will have to specify a recipient for the message. This can be done in one of three ways


1. The top arrow is pointing to the 'Username' box. You can type the username of the person or people you wish to send the pm to in this box, then click 'Add To' or 'Add BCC' (found below the Groups). 'Add To' puts the names into the 'To' line and are visible to everyone receiving the PM. 'Add BCC' puts the names in the BCC line and all recipients are invisible to each other. If you are unsure exactly how the recipients username is spelled you can use the 'Find Member' search just underneath the box to find it.

2. The middle arrow is pointing to the 'Groups' box. Here you will be able to pm a whole group of people, such as Global Moderators (Global Moderators is the board name for Managers - if you choose this group your PM will go to all of the Managers). Again, click 'Add To' or 'Add BCC' and the group will be added to your recipient list for that message.

3. The bottom arrow is pointing to the Friends list. If you have chosen certain users to add to your friends list they will show here as online or offline. Rather than having to type their usernames into the top box, you can choose them individually from this list. Just click 'Add' next to their name and they will be put in the 'To' box.

MANAGE PM DRAFTS:
If you are not ready to send your pm then you can choose 'Save' rather than 'Submit' and come back to work on it later. Your saved drafts can be found here.

RULES, FOLDERS & SETTINGS:
As with your personal email client, you can also create your own custom private message folders on Whippet World. Keep in mind that you have limited space (a maximum of 50 messages per folder) so it's best not to use this as your main form of contact/storage.

To add a new folder, enter the folder's name into the Add folder input box. If creation was successful, your new folder will appear at the bottom of the folder list. You can then use it like a normal message folder and move messages into it or set a message rule/filter.

It wouldn't make sense to have custom folders if you weren't able to move messages between them. To do exactly that, visit the folder from which you want to move the messages away. Select the messages you want to move by checking the box next to them, and then choose the 'Moved marked messages' from the drop-down menu at the bottom and select the destination folder.

To automatically filter messages in the correct folder (for example by sender), you can make rules. Click the drop down menus in the Rules section to decide how you would like to filter your messages if this is a feature you would like to take advantage of.

Deleting Messages From Your PM Center:
If you find your message folders are getting full you can delete messages by checking the box next to each message you would like to delete, then choose 'delete' from the drop down menu at the bottom.


There are 2 additional ways in which you can PM someone specifically

1. To PM a specific member (aside from using the Member Search and putting them in manually from your PM centere) you can click on their 'Profile' button at the bottom left of any of their posts, which will take you to their profile.


Then click on the 'PM' button found on left.


2. To PM someone about a specific post, click on the pm button at the bottom of that post.


You will then be taken to your PM centre, their username will already be in the 'To' box and the text you are commenting on will be quoted in your message window.