I'm not the most technically literate person, I still think in COBOL ha! Is there a way to block a member on the forum from sending you private messages? I'm getting a bunch of unsolicited private messages from a user and they are pretty angry and vitriolic. I am uncomfortable.

I would consider contacting one of the moderators since the PMs are upsetting & annoying.


from the homepage -

• The INTERCHANGE requires all posters to adhere to a high standard of courtesy and civility. Polite, constructive criticisms, and polite responses to same, are acceptable. Insulting or inflammatory language; argument and debate for their own sake, challenging posters to “put up or shut up” attempts to chill discussions; and personal, ad hominem, attacks on other posters ("flaming") are all prohibited. Please note that this standard is inherently subjective, and is considerably more restrictive than the standards on many other railfan and railroad forums. Some people may not find it possible to express their full views and stay within this guideline. Other people may have legitimate philosophical objections to posting under inherently subjective moderation. In either case, we must respectfully ask them to express their views in other forums than this one.

Some of these software packages have a 'friends' and 'foes' function, where you can be alerted when your 'friends' post, or just not see when a 'foe' does. My understanding of that functionality is that it can be extended to PMs, and if some of the RyPN staff can get in to configure that, it should do what you need.

On the other hand, threatening messages of any kind is a prima facie violation of the terms of service, no different from if they'd posted the messages here. As such you're within your rights to request moderation of that member, and if they should persist PM-dogging you, a ban for them. Let the moderator handle the traffic with the member involved, and don't complicate the situation by 'replying in kind' or doing revenge posting here.

This was my first time playing around with this part of my profile, but in the PM settings section of my profile I found the ability to create "rules".

Going through the steps, I selected the following options in this order:

1. If Sender

2. Is Foe

3. Delete message

Now if I define another user as a foe I should (in theory at least) not receive any messages from them. I'm not sure what will happen to the messages you've already received if you take this action.

If you flag it that way, you'll receive messages, but the system will reasonably promptly delete them (whether or not you read them).

I believe there is also a way you can disable being notified when a foe messages you, but still preserves the traffic in your folder (in case, for example, you feel you need to escalate to a ban and want evidence to show). That should be achieved with "mark message as read" automatically as the last "next step" of rule setting -- as soon as it is marked 'read' the little pop-up notification won't trigger and you can just overlook that sender in your 'conversations' list. You can also select 'mark message' if from a 'foe' which would allow you to quickly find all the different conversations from them ... when karma time is due.

Now to set 'em as a foe, the way I know is to go into the "Members" list in the overhead gray bar, and then scroll to 'whoever the member is' -- this may take a considerable time as there are 244 pages of members, but you can 'resort' on things like number of posts and then compare the display from one of their more current posts to see what range they are in (I'm currently on the second page).

Once there, click on their member name to pull up the record. You will see controls to 'set as friend' or 'set as foe'. Do that and I think any subsequent 'rules' involving foes in your PM folder will fire correctly as desired.

You could post each of their private messages for everyone to see. I'm sure that would stop them from sending them again.

Exactly.

If you re being harrassed one of your friendly moderators can assist as needed. There is no place for that here.

Here’s the private message I received-

“
It would be my desire to share with you that I have not called you names. You are entitled to your position as much as anybody else is. That being said, my invitation to you is the same as it is for everybody else here. Please take a minute and call me or email me direct and we can chat about a few things. It is easy to hide behind a handle on RYPN and just post away, much harder it is to face an enemy (real or not) and talk about an issue. You and I may actually have a lot in common. Maybe we actually could help each other. Maybe I could actually provide you more fire power against me that you could use?

Post away.... just know I would love to chat on a one on one level if you ever want to.

John E. Rimmasch
My real name, no handle, I am who I am....
“

Forgive me, but............

I see nothing threatening, intimidating, or harassing about the text of the message purportedly sent by Mr. Rimmasch.

It's a polite invitation to discuss the topic further in a non-web setting.

Now, sure, if there are other messages filled with threats or profanities being sent to others (C-Z isn't the OP of this thread, after all)........ or if he's sending such messages every five minutes........... I would reconsider.

Then again, we're now in a convoluted, screwed-up age of "offensensitivity" where someone called the police to report my supposedly "threatening," "obscene," and "intimidating" signs in the back window of my car as I was parked at my local polling place last month.

The signs in question?
Parody "campaign posters" of the outer-space aliens Kang and Kodos from the 1996 episode of The Simpsons.

"KANG: Either Way, Your Planet Is DOOMED!"
"KODOS: Twirking.... Twirling.... TWIRLING Towards Freedom!"

The police officers who responded were polite to me and had some fairly harsh words for the party that called them on me......

Alexander, when did I say I thought it was threatening? I was just sharing the private message that landed in my mailbox.

As I said, you're not the original poster (OP).

Further, upon review, all the OP said was that he was "uncomfortable".................

Ah ok I understand.

It’s a bit creepy when anyone on the internet tries to get personal information from you (phone #, personal e-mail, etc.).

I'm so old I remember telephone books. And Directory Assistance.

I'm so old I remember telephone books. And Directory Assistance.

If that makes you old, I must be old.
I remember picking up the phone and
listening to see if the party line was busy.