STILL no private messaging function here
Summary: In a thread discussing the lack of private messaging on a platform, gurlcat expresses frustration over the delay and absence of new features. dolcetreasures and several others discuss technical issues, such as difficulties with adding photos and typing messages. devon@ebay assures that the Bevy team is working on the messaging system. Some participants reminisce about useful features like the 'Best Answer' and debated the relevance of user titles such as "Guide." Eventually, kensgiftshop confirms that the messaging function has become available, leading to excitement among users. The conversation also humorously touches on ways to communicate or share information in the absence of private messaging.
@devon@ebay Can we please at least get a ballpark estimate of when we'll have private messaging? Considering I haven't observed any other new features/improvements in recent days, it's starting to look like construction is over, and they changed their minds about letting us have a PM function.
inhawaii
·1 month ago · EditedWhy don't we all just exchange cell phone numbers?
lakefor94
·1 month agoYou already have mine. Why don't I hear from you, @inhawaii ?
ryry-jj
·1 month agoYes, we have PM!!
kensgiftshop
·1 month agoLooks like they have the message option now.
gurlcat
OP1 month agoOMG! Yes I see I have some, WOW!!!!
nyr134
·1 month ago · EditedIf someone were to get a Community message, where would they find it and would they be notified that they have one?
@gurlcat did you not know you had Community messages until you saw the @kensgiftshop post that messages are now a thing here?
jtg204
·1 month agoand can we hide our online status, or what does a green dot mean?
kensgiftshop
·1 month agoI sent you a message and maybe we can figure out where to find them.
On the left side of the page, there is a message link, but mine doesn't do anything.
nyr134
·1 month ago · EditedYes! On the left side is the red circle now. I will open them and respond so you can see it on your end. Thanks. ( But no emailed notification that I got a message; I needed to actually open Community to see it)
gone.c-33
·1 month ago@gurlcat Changing the font on the hamburger menu was OBVIOUSLY more important!
onefootflipper
·1 month agoThe most frustrating thing is that every message board software package available for probably 30+ years now has private messaging capability. There is no way that this doesn't. I have been the admin of quite a few message boards over the years on half a dozen different software packages and it was ALWAYS just a setting that could be toggled on or off.
It is almost certainly a case of Larry not having any authority to do anything while Bob does have the authority and the issue is sitting in Bob's inbox not even looked at.
It could also be the multi-layered "not sure if I have the authority" issue, where Larry won't do it without Bob's permission and Bob won't do it without Barb's permission and Barb doesn't know what messageboards are and has ignored Bob's request.
iamalwaysright
·1 month ago · EditedMaybe. But I’m sticking to my theory of eBay’s nephew graduating from an online IT class and trying to build the boards up from scratch to show off his chops. Pretty soon he’ll just get bored of this whole thing and decide he wants to go into photography instead. And good ol’ mom and dad will pay for his equipment and classes. Just like my deadbeat brother in law.
iamalwaysright
·1 month ago · Edited@gurlcat in the meanwhile we can just send public one-on-one messages to each other by starting a new posts and threads and paging the member you want to message, lol.
For example, the next time I want to message you I’ll start a post with the title “Message to Gurlcat” and just message and just page you in the body. I was going to suggest this from day one until I saw a screenshot of the messages tab. 😀
It does really seem like they didn’t really have a concrete plan on the structure and interface of this new board in place and are just making it up as they go along huh. It’s like eBay just had a dead beat nephew graduate from an IT school and was forced by his parents to give him job to totally overhaul the boards.
soh.maryl
·1 month agoI believe you've stumbled on the whole story.
grann-4629
·1 month agoThat idea would probably result in a bunch of 'off topic' discussions that are usually fun things to talk about, but annoy some members here. I would wait until Bevy gets it done.
gurlcat
OP1 month agoBut then how could we talk about people behind their backs? We deserve the right to ask and answer "What's his/her problem?" and we deserve it NOW!!! 🤣
iamalwaysright
·1 month agoYea I was actually just thinking of that when I wrote my reply. That and use profanity. Maybe if we just type in Pig Latin.
gurlcat
OP1 month agoWell profanity was censored even in the private messages, on the old forum. -Auto censored, anyway. Not edited by mods. But you know they could read them, right?
grann-4629
·1 month agoI actually had a nice conversation with a Mod on the old forum after one of my posts was archi ...I mean deleted. She was amused by some of our posts (you all know who you are), but had to moderate them or her job would be in jeopardy. We ended our talk when her shift ended.
gurlcat
OP1 month agoWow that's awesome! I once talked to a Paypal employee for a half-hour, with only a small part of that being my transaction issue. Everybody likes a little chill time from their job.
zakstreasuretrove
·1 month agoWe could bring back olde tyme insults instead. I for one believe rapscallion, knave, scoundrel, scallywag, ruffian, dunderhead, nitwit, poltroon, and simpleton deserve another go.
chapeau-noir
·1 month agoSeveral of those are in current use (they came up in the last few generations - including scofflaw which is a nice old descriptor.
zakstreasuretrove
·1 month agoJust don't call me a politician! Them's fightin' werds!
grann-4629
·1 month agoOr real Latin 😎
iamalwaysright
·1 month agoMind blown
frugalmarketplace
·1 month agoAlso what happen to our “titles” I was a “guide” what ever that means and it is
Gone .
chapeau-noir
·1 month agoThose I do NOT mind going away.
lakefor94
·1 month agoThought I might become a super-duper-pooper-star at some point.......
glorybells
·1 month agoThose titles had been a slightly contentious issue for awhile. That’s gone to never return. And just because we haven’t seen obvious changes in a bit doesn’t mean that they aren’t still working behind the scenes. They’re still tweaking everything (I know because I noticed recently that a feature we had on one of the boards had disappeared, and I found out it was something that got shut off while they were working on something else). I know everyone was expecting a great big beautiful site to open fully functional, but it didn’t happen that way. Give it more time.
chapeau-noir
·1 month agoI've been through a bunch of chat board redesigns - this one has been a lot more rocky than usual.
frugalmarketplace
·1 month agoYou have that one right.
gurlcat
OP1 month agoI hope we don't get those back. They were truly meaningless and only triggered angry newbies. Even if there is a plan to restore them, I could easily think of a dozen or more things I'd hope they would prioritize before that.
grann-4629
·1 month ago100% correct @gurlcat , but some people like to be stroked with a title, and others like to say 'my title is higher than yours'.
gurlcat
OP1 month ago · EditedEven to what tiny extent prestige appeals to me, I can't think of a version any sillier than Community badges based on posting "accomplishments." 😆
If they at least had an intuitive tiered structure, like where a new poster could easily tell which repliers were more (or less) trustworthy with their advice, then maybe I could get on board. But what the heck is a newbie supposed to make of hokey labels like "Adventurer" or "Rock Star" or whatever? Just a bleepin' JOKE!
grann-4629
·1 month agoThat would be a great idea! I don't know how it could be accomplished ... who decides trustiness of posters? This may be a good challenge for AI.
I can't even remember what I was ... I think it started with an upper-case G and ended with a lower-case d 😎
Always great to hear from you.
gurlcat
OP1 month agoWell do you remember the Best Answer feature? Call me crazy but I'd say that would be a pretty solid and simple measure of trustworthiness. The more of those a poster received, the more likely they give correct information, reliably.
Now if only we HAD the Best Offer feature here.....
grann-4629
·1 month agoYes! That was a great feature and it saved a LOT of time for those who were really looking for an answer and didn't want to wade through a bunch of nonsense. When I started trying to learn eBay, that's the type of posts I mostly read. They were nicely highlighted and very easy to find.
iamalwaysright
·1 month agoBut you gotta love how some members would start a thread, write a reply to it, and mark their own reply as the “best answer”.
chapeau-noir
·1 month agoThe 'rockstar' moniker seemed to provoke the worst reactions.
devon@ebay
Hey @gurlcat ! The Bevy team and us are working very hard to get direct messaging fully functional and we will let you know as soon as we can for when it will be available!
dhbookds
·1 month ago@devon@ebay any way I can get a message to you? not on this subject.......
d
devon@ebay
@dhbookds you can email in and put the attention to myself at askcommunity@ebay.com
chapeau-noir
·1 month agoThank you, Devon!
onefootflipper
·1 month agoIsn't this just an off the shelf message board system. It should just be a setting in the global admin controls.
gurlcat
OP1 month agoMaybe they programming in a bunch of flag words for monitoring, so they know when the insurgents plan to start the revolution. 😆
onefootflipper
·1 month agoThat could indeed be the case. The Bobs can't decide on the list of banned phrases.
gurlcat
OP1 month ago · EditedThanks so much Devon. Do you know (or can you ask) if we're going to get the Best Answer feature back too? That was extremely useful in multiple ways. I see that it's already on the Ask A Mentor forum, but it sure would be great if we had it in all of them again. @devon@ebay
devon@ebay
Hey @gurlcat ! We can ask Bevy on if that is possible to add that feature to other boards such as Selling. Give us some time and I will let you know what they say.
gurlcat
OP1 month agoYes PLEASE do. It was such a helpful feature in the old forum, and would maybe be even more so in this new one, considering how the threading/sorting feature confuses a lot of people. If Best Answer was restored, and also made the top (pinned) reply, that would alleviate a lot of frustration. @devon@ebay
pastimpressions
·1 month agoThe platform boldly proclaims: "Dive into dynamic discussions, earn badges, and unlock exclusive perks. Every interaction contributes to a vibrant community experience. Join us for themed challenges, live events, and collaborative activities."
I patiently await some semblance of evidence in this direction.
Thus far, quite antithetical to stated goals, discussions are less robust, the community discourse is much less vibrant.
Logical and intuitive progression has seemingly been supplanted by counterintuitive placements, formats and planning.
It is immediately apparent that there was zero input in real time from actual daily users.
Any.
Not one.
Or it was duly noted and summarily discarded.
So, @gurlcat is inquiring rightly with regards to PM's on the boards.
I mentioned this some time ago as did several other posters including the OP who is following up with an SOS.
We are working on it.
Thanks for your input.
The check is in the mail.
All of this can be defined in many ways. None of which could remotely be conceived as "dynamic, interactive, exclusive or vibrant."
A beautifully constructed mission statement that has been given the "thumbs up" all around the conference table is NOT to be confused with the actual reality for which that statement aspires.
Just one man's opinion.
iamalwaysright
·1 month ago · EditedYou can’t hold them to that. They just generated that description from AI to sound exciting and copied/pasted it without proofreading it for accuracy. 😏
ten_o_nine
·1 month ago@gurlcat I completely agree. By launching this update without a user manual or basic instructions, they've just left us to blindly figure it out on our own. It really feels like they didn't think about the end users or look at our feedback at all. They are making it much harder for us to connect with other members, and the lack of a PM function is a huge part of that.
lakefor94
·1 month agoOn the other side of the coin, the changes and perceived lack of fluidness eliminates some of the no-op posters that add useless, one-sentence posts for attention, which offer nothing to the thread.
IMO, threads are garnering more direct and useful responses for those in need of help without weeding through as many useless comments. Culling can be a useful tool in many realms.
chapeau-noir
·1 month agoI suspect they will find us.
(Oops - I tend to do one-sentence posts and, well...)
lakefor94
·1 month agoBeing somewhat clever can garner respect.
muddylas
·1 month agoor not..........
soh.maryl
·1 month agoMaybe, when eBay finishes patting themselves on the back, someone will consider restoring the DM function.
glorybells
·1 month agoThey’ve been working on getting that going since the new site opened last month. That’s one of several functions they hope to have active soon.
ryry-jj
·1 month agoWe are all here just to script the AI
dolcetreasures
·1 month agoI was having the issue where I could only type one line of characters before the visible text would pass below the bottom edge of the chat bar making it impossible to see what you are typing.
I still can’t add photos to my messages, they just won’t populate, I can select a photo but it doesn’t register in the chat field.
lakefor94
·1 month ago · EditedSame here with my Android phone. I get an error when loading a pic.
Loading pics works great from my older Android tablet that won't load the eBay app, lol.
Can add pics from my Win11 desktop.
Overall, the impementation of this new message board has transpired just about how I would have expected. Probably take 6 months to a year to get everything ironed out.
thelongball
·1 month agoHere is one of my few post on the new board. As now that the legit questions needing help go to the mentor bord. This board is just full of frustrated seller's comments and to many things get deleted. It's just not what it was before.
albertabrightalberta
·1 month agoRather than uploading using the image icon, I've been adding pictures by finding them in my pictures in my laptop or phone and just copying and pasting into the reply box.
chapeau-noir
·1 month agoI just drag and drop.
lakefor94
·1 month agoYep, it worked. Thanks @albertabrightalberta
chapeau-noir
·1 month agoThat bird looks like she's seeing someone she hasn't seen in ages, and is trotting forward saying 'Hey! How are you doing...I haven't seen you in aaaaages!'
gurlcat
OP1 month ago · EditedMEEP MEEP!
gurlcat
OP1 month agoA hand-raised one can be just as friendly as you're describing. I love this one's puppy dog tail-wagging. 😍
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0KRmh7MxUEc
chapeau-noir
·1 month agoThe little happy chattering, too.
(I love The Dodo!)
lakefor94
·1 month ago · Edited@chapeau-noir
We have a pair that have been frequenting.
Pretty cool birds. Can be very shy.
Beautiful for sure.
Snapped that out the truck window coming in the driveway.
Best shot over the last 20+ years of a RR.
gurlcat
OP1 month agoWow I'm jealous. But I will say the one and only time I saw one in the wild was pretty awesome. It was in central Arkansas, I was about 20, and the one I saw was literally running on the road (rural road out in the boonies). It actually ran right alongside my car for a while, and I got a really good look at it.
At the time I didn't know 'Roadrunner' was based on a real bird species, but he was what immediately came to mind, so I wondered ... is that what this IS??? And this was about 1994, so no Google. But the next time I was at the library, I sure did go to the non-fiction section, find some bird books and YES found this amazing creature is real!
Fun fact: their closest relative is cuckoo's!
lakefor94
·1 month agoI heard, "meep meep" twice. That is my story and stickin' to it"