# Send a private message (PM) **URL:** \ **Category:** Site discussion\ **Tags:** discourse, community\ **Created:** [March 2, 2016, 9:50am UTC](https://community.metabrainz.org/t/send-a-private-message-pm/88 "2016-03-02T09:50:51Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 16\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![jesus2099](https://community.metabrainz.org/user_avatar/community.metabrainz.org/jesus2099/32/36_2.png) [@jesus2099](https://community.metabrainz.org/u/jesus2099)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2016, 9:50am UTC](https://community.metabrainz.org/t/send-a-private-message-pm/88/1 "2016-03-02T09:50:51Z")
As an MB editor, I often need to send some messages to other editors. In the [forums user profile page](http://forums.musicbrainz.org/profile.php?id=315), I could rely on the **Send forum email** feature that’s a great way to send some MB person an email, it’s often my last resort. It’s convenient, it can be replied directly, etc. I have searched but couldn’t find it in a [discourse user profile](https://community.metabrainz.org/users/jesus2099)’s page… Is there other people interested in this and is there a way to enable users sending PM to each others ? Maybe the [MB user profile page](http://musicbrainz.org/user/jesus2099) **send email** link should be kept unique, maybe, after all… I see the terms [private message](https://github.com/discourse/discourse/search?utf8=%E2%9C%93&q=private+message) in their github so maybe it’s just an option to activate. Why did I have preference with forums’ tool… ? - Because of the ability to reply from where we are reading the message. - Because I need to contact some developpers (non editors) and I couldn’t find their MB user easily sometimes - Sometimes user names are not the same between forums, IRC, MB and sometimes I only know one of those names (sounds same as above reason) My first post is so crappy… Please forgive. ---
**Author:** ![Freso](https://community.metabrainz.org/user_avatar/community.metabrainz.org/freso/32/25_2.png) [@Freso](https://community.metabrainz.org/u/Freso)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2016, 9:59am UTC](https://community.metabrainz.org/t/send-a-private-message-pm/88/2 "2016-03-02T09:59:08Z")
Private messages _are_ just an option that needs to be switched on. And it is on by default. I turned it off deliberately until we know more about how we’re going to do [notifications and messaging in MetaBrainz projects](http://blog.musicbrainz.org/2016/01/29/notifications-and-messaging-in-metabrainz-projects/). We obviously don’t want to end up with multiple different ways to private message someone else. 😉 > [@jesus2099](#): > > Sometimes user names are not the same between forums, IRC, MB and sometimes I only know one of those names (sounds same as above reason) We’re working on a solution so that usernames _will_ be identical across MB and Discourse at least. We obviously can’t enforce IRC, but with time (a loooong time), this should also hold true for ticket tracker and all the rest of our sites as we get moving to MB-based SSO setups. But for Discourse at least, it should hold true from one of the next two server releases (or possibly earlier, depending on whether we feel like using [beta.musicbrainz.org](http://beta.musicbrainz.org) to authenticate against until the new SSO backend is fully released on main MB.o - we’ll see). ---
**Author:** ![jesus2099](https://community.metabrainz.org/user_avatar/community.metabrainz.org/jesus2099/32/36_2.png) [@jesus2099](https://community.metabrainz.org/u/jesus2099)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2016, 10:12am UTC](https://community.metabrainz.org/t/send-a-private-message-pm/88/3 "2016-03-02T10:12:47Z")
Yes, keeping a unique link is a good thing. > [@Freso](#): > > We’re working on a solution so that usernames will be identical across MB and Discourse at least. Could we have a link from all Discourse user profile pages to their associated MB user profile pages, even before that? ---
**Author:** ![Freso](https://community.metabrainz.org/user_avatar/community.metabrainz.org/freso/32/25_2.png) [@Freso](https://community.metabrainz.org/u/Freso)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2016, 11:01am UTC](https://community.metabrainz.org/t/send-a-private-message-pm/88/4 "2016-03-02T11:01:04Z")
> [@jesus2099](#): > > Could we have a link from all Discourse user profile pages to their associated MB user profile pages, even before that? Probably not before that, no, since we’re unfortunately unable to enforce same-username currently. It may also require some custom-coding/a plugin for Discourse. This is one of the “rough edges” mentioned in the blog post. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Freso](https://community.metabrainz.org/user_avatar/community.metabrainz.org/freso/32/25_2.png) [@Freso](https://community.metabrainz.org/u/Freso)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2016, 1:16pm UTC](https://community.metabrainz.org/t/send-a-private-message-pm/88/5 "2016-03-05T13:16:09Z")
Split this topic on March 5, 2016, 1:16pm UTC 2 posts were split to a new topic: [About usernames](https://community.metabrainz.org/t/about-usernames/189) ---
**Author:** ![hiccup](https://community.metabrainz.org/user_avatar/community.metabrainz.org/hiccup/32/5512_2.png) [@hiccup](https://community.metabrainz.org/u/hiccup)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2017, 10:40am UTC](https://community.metabrainz.org/t/send-a-private-message-pm/88/6 "2017-09-22T10:40:21Z")
How can you send a PM to another member? That option seems to be extremely well hidden? ---
**Author:** ![outsidecontext](https://community.metabrainz.org/user_avatar/community.metabrainz.org/outsidecontext/32/90_2.png) [@outsidecontext](https://community.metabrainz.org/u/outsidecontext)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2017, 11:41am UTC](https://community.metabrainz.org/t/send-a-private-message-pm/88/7 "2017-09-22T11:41:29Z")
> [@hiccup](#): > > How can you send a PM to another member? Use the send e-mail feature on the MusicBrainz profile page, e.g. [Editor “hiccup” - MusicBrainz](https://musicbrainz.org/user/hiccup) The PM feature on Discourse is intentionally disabled to not have two parallel options for the same feature. ---
**Author:** ![hiccup](https://community.metabrainz.org/user_avatar/community.metabrainz.org/hiccup/32/5512_2.png) [@hiccup](https://community.metabrainz.org/u/hiccup)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2017, 11:47am UTC](https://community.metabrainz.org/t/send-a-private-message-pm/88/8 "2017-09-22T11:47:29Z")
Thanks. I had just figured out something like that. But it was some effort. I couldn’t find the profile page for this specific member from the message board options at all. So I copied the profile url from another member that I found, and replaced his name with the one I needed to contact. Is there indeed no way to get there coming from the message boards by just using your mouse? ---
**Author:** ![justcheckingitout](https://community.metabrainz.org/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/j/8baadc/32.png) [@justcheckingitout](https://community.metabrainz.org/u/justcheckingitout)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2017, 1:14pm UTC](https://community.metabrainz.org/t/send-a-private-message-pm/88/9 "2017-09-22T13:14:38Z")
As a new user, I have often wanted to send someone a message to ask them a question - part of the learning process. All edit-related questions should be posted on that edit so that there is a running history of the edit. I assume allowing a private message system would be misused, and most messages that should be on the edit would now be private, That is what happens on WP - article talk pages are blank while user talk messages are littered with back and forth about edit content, until eventually a dispute resolution is requested - while the article talk page remains blank. ---
**Author:** ![hiccup](https://community.metabrainz.org/user_avatar/community.metabrainz.org/hiccup/32/5512_2.png) [@hiccup](https://community.metabrainz.org/u/hiccup)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2017, 1:19pm UTC](https://community.metabrainz.org/t/send-a-private-message-pm/88/10 "2017-09-22T13:19:18Z")
Are you trying to say that MetaBrainz on purpose wants to prevent members from sending a PM? ---
**Author:** ![reosarevok](https://community.metabrainz.org/user_avatar/community.metabrainz.org/reosarevok/32/69228_2.png) [@reosarevok](https://community.metabrainz.org/u/reosarevok)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2017, 1:27pm UTC](https://community.metabrainz.org/t/send-a-private-message-pm/88/11 "2017-09-22T13:27:31Z")
> [@hiccup](#): > > Are you trying to say that MetaBrainz on purpose wants to prevent members from sending a PM? We don’t want to prevent this, although we would definitely prefer any edit-related discussion to remain on edit notes! 🙂 Private messages are still useful for many things, from “hey, sorry, can you check if I’m doing this right” to “I see you have this album in your collection, mind checking this for me” to just “hey I see you’re in the same town as I am, beer sometime?”, so we’d definitely not want to limit them, but it’s better to have only one place to message someone because the more places you have, the harder it is to keep track of them. That said - @Freso, is it possible to add a “see MusicBrainz profile” link on everyone’s discourse profile page or something? 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![hiccup](https://community.metabrainz.org/user_avatar/community.metabrainz.org/hiccup/32/5512_2.png) [@hiccup](https://community.metabrainz.org/u/hiccup)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2017, 1:39pm UTC](https://community.metabrainz.org/t/send-a-private-message-pm/88/12 "2017-09-22T13:39:35Z")
Thanks for being open to such a suggestion. It is a bit surprising to me that this hasn’t come up before. For other forums I frequent it is very useful, so you can avoid ‘littering’ existing threads with messages that are not of interest or useful to other members. I feel that you should trust your members to have the judgement to use this wisely, or correct fellow members when not using this appropriately. But I have gotten the feeling earlier already, that MusicBrainz has had many troubles in the past with lots of spam, inappropriate behavior, etc. etc., which has resulted in these sorts of restrictions. That’s a pity. ---
**Author:** ![outsidecontext](https://community.metabrainz.org/user_avatar/community.metabrainz.org/outsidecontext/32/90_2.png) [@outsidecontext](https://community.metabrainz.org/u/outsidecontext)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2017, 4:25pm UTC](https://community.metabrainz.org/t/send-a-private-message-pm/88/13 "2017-09-22T16:25:58Z")
> [@reosarevok](#): > > …add a “see MusicBrainz profile” link on everyone’s discourse profile page or something? 🙂 Uneben thought we had this at some point, but couldn’t find it. But maybe my memory is wrong here. ---
**Author:** ![Freso](https://community.metabrainz.org/user_avatar/community.metabrainz.org/freso/32/25_2.png) [@Freso](https://community.metabrainz.org/u/Freso)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2017, 9:29am UTC](https://community.metabrainz.org/t/send-a-private-message-pm/88/14 "2017-09-23T09:29:43Z")
> [@reosarevok](#): > > That said - @Freso, is it possible to add a “see MusicBrainz profile” link on everyone’s discourse profile page or something? 🙂 I don’t know if that’s possible, but it’s certainly something I would like to see. I would, however, prefer if we could avoid editing Discourse’s core code. If it’s possible via a plugin to Discourse to add such a link, I am all for it. I wish @opatel99 was still around, as they were the one who made the Discourse MusicBrainz OAuth2 plugin and they might have a better understanding of what’s possible and not possible. Feel free to open a ticket for this (in OTHER, I think?) for further investigation. ---
**Author:** ![reosarevok](https://community.metabrainz.org/user_avatar/community.metabrainz.org/reosarevok/32/69228_2.png) [@reosarevok](https://community.metabrainz.org/u/reosarevok)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2017, 10:07am UTC](https://community.metabrainz.org/t/send-a-private-message-pm/88/15 "2017-09-23T10:07:18Z")
> [@Freso](#): > > Feel free to open a ticket for this (in OTHER, I think?) for further investigation. Added [OTHER-302](https://tickets.metabrainz.org/browse/OTHER-302). ---
**Author:** ![jesus2099](https://community.metabrainz.org/user_avatar/community.metabrainz.org/jesus2099/32/36_2.png) [@jesus2099](https://community.metabrainz.org/u/jesus2099)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2019, 3:26pm UTC](https://community.metabrainz.org/t/send-a-private-message-pm/88/17 "2019-07-05T15:26:49Z")
@Darkloke @dragonzeron @no0ne @bflaminio Please reveal your email address when you use the send email link on my MBS user profile page, next time. It’s really inconvenient for me to not being able to reply quickly from where I am without having to retype the subject, etc. Or please use the forum for questions that usually are answered there. It will also benefit to the others, in this case. 🙂