Hey All! Only my second day here. I’m wondering what the community norms around DMs are here. In many communities I run in, DMs before a person has given their explicit consent are a big no no. But in those places there is normally some sort of central place where you can ask if it’s okay to DM. What happens here? Is it cool to DM someone without permission, especially if your first DM is something like, “Is it okay if I DM you? I wanted to talk about XYZ?” If it’s not, how do y’all handle it?
And while I’m asking questions, I’ve read the guidelines and the FAQ and the descriptions of the categories you can post in. Any other tips or trick anyone wants to give me to start me off on the right foot?
Oh, and lastly, are Buddhist memes appreciated in the Watercooler? Or is that something to stay away from because humor can be tricky to communicate?
Thank you!
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I am not one of the @moderators but I’ve been here a while. They can chime in if I’m overstepping.
I think that’s fine as it’s polite, just don’t keep sending messages if the person doesn’t reply or asks you to stop.
We have a specific thread for them:
Please keep your memes there ^
Welcome to the forum!
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I am also not a moderator, but I have also been here a while.
I think generally we are a public discussion forum first. If you have something worth discussing, then it’s worth having publicly. Except we don’t do public discussions of personal practice. Those are generally best kept private. But we don’t have any real pathway for that to happen.
For those things it’s best to make a public post and try and frame any personal practice questions in the form of neutral questions about the early Buddhist texts. For example, “What do the suttas tell us about family getting in the way of practice?” And I believe it’s fine in a post like that to mention that you welcome any PMs on the subject.
Also, be conservative in using the @username feature for mentions. Especially for monastics.
A technical note: The “P” in PM stands for personal, not private. While the staff don’t go in looking at these communications unless there is a moderation need, on the back end it’s all just posts, so it’s not hard to see one accidentally. Truly private things should be taken to another platform.
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I agree with what Bhante Kh and Venerable Snowbird said.
Just a quick note saying ‘Is it ok if we message about xyz?’ if someone doesn’t reply they’re either not up for it or busy.
If you want to take a post thread to DM, you can click on the user’s profile and choose message and it’ll show up as a personal response to the current thread.
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