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There has been a time or two I wanted to continue conversations started in discussion threads that may not be of general interest (e.g. swapping backpacking stories with Jeff Bond. Jeff. Look for my LinkedIn invite:-))
Asking someone publicly for contact info seems inappropriate (opening up to spammers etc).
It would be useful if messages could be marked private to a single member.
Other options? New feature (Jonathan?). Personal friendships often grow out of meeting in group settings.
Assuming it is too expensive or complicated to retool HD for that feature, someone could create a private HumbleDollar Facebook group. After connecting there, people could then use Messenger to chat privately.
Some people, me for example, refuse to use FB.
True. Any external platform that could be suggested wouldn’t work for everyone. There’s also LinkedIn, for example. Still, with sufficient motivation, many people could find a way to connect outside of HD.
Same.
The “use some existing mechanism” idea seems like least work though.
IRC is still a thing :-)/2
Signal group chats may be a low overhead way to enable opt-in out-of-band communication for those interested. Good enough for journalists, political dissidents, etc. I’ll poke around, do a little learning, and maybe put up an opt-in link … of course with the full understanding that there is no official link or endorsement here. Maybe call it the ArrogantPenny 🙂
I used to be active on another forum that had a private messaging feature and it was certainly used. Posters also occasionally arranged get-togethers using the feature. A couple of people on HD have contacted me “offline” – I posted my blog address and they posted a comment there. As new contributors the comment didn’t appear. I once acquired an Internet stalker so there’s no way I would post my email address.
The safe way to do this is via adding a feature to the site called private messaging which allows members of the site to exchange messages within the site itself. This is not an inexpensive add-on for the site owner and increases the cost and time required for administering it.
I like this idea. I hope there’s a way it can be done.