Hello, I just wanted to make a suggestion to help improve EC. I think people should be able to private message each other even if they are not full members. Although I can understand the logic behind this rule, I do think it would improve the site and certainly make it easier for people to communicate privately within EC. Thanks.
The reason for that is to prevent predators from coming on here and having full PM access to anybody on the site. It's so you have to prove your intentions before you get free and clear access. Yeah it's not fun, and just like everybody else, I was a full member once too, but it's a necessary evil.
It's not like the mods want to suck away all the fun of the site or anything. There's a precedent of predators abusing messaging features to target young members. I wasn't part of the site when this happened, but I read there was an incident (my memory is hazy) in which a significantly older member kept insinuating himself inappropriately to an underage user and the staff had to step in when the situation escalated. The thing is, the vast majority of users here are in their teens, and, this being a support site, more than likely a lot of them are troubled, confused and/or dealing with some sort of issue regarding their sexuality. Those factors make them incredibly vulnerable to predators online, so it's the site's responsibility to have safekeeping measures in place, like the Full-Membership system, in order to discourage that kind of behavior and protect users. I get your frustration, but this is one of those cases where a few bad apples ruin it for the rest of us, and in this particular case said bad apples are so abhorrent I really don't mind giving away some perks if that means making it harder or them to slip through the cracks.
Like AwesomGaytheist and RawringSnake said, we care much about the safety and security of the site, and thus we need to ensure that the community is safe and fun for everyone. If everyone was allowed to send Private Messages, the amounts of reports and problems would be greatly increased, and we also cannot check each message that is being sent/received. Also, we already had problems with Full Members, even after all the selection process. Imagine if we didn't have this process. I understand that this restriction can be annoying. Everyone was a Regular Member in the past, and i think that the majority of people here have good intentions. However, as Snake said, a few bad apples ruin it for the rest, and thus we need these restrictions to ensure that the forum is safe and fun for everyone, like i already said. But thanks for your suggestion
The issue has come up quite a number of times. One of the things that keeps EC safe, as others have said, are our security restrictions. When you talk to people who frequent other sites that are somewhat similar, but don't have the restrictions we do, those sites are universally overrun with creepers. For that reason, our security policy, including our PM policy, is not something that is likely to ever change.
