A suggestion.

One way that any two OLO users can have an 'off air' conversation without sacrificing their anonymity is to use a private messaging facility.

The OLO Forum does not have this facility, but many other fora do.

The two users come to an agreement via publically viewable posts to OLO as to what other forum having the facility of PM (private messaging) they will use. They then register on that forum in much the same way as they would have on OLO, with a real email address as any forum requires, and establish a userID. Their privacy against being publicly identified is as secure as that forum's policies and ethics provides in relation to disclosure of email addresses and any subsequent connectability of those registration addresses with userIDs.

For example, should Belly want to know the steps I took to find out why he had dropped off the radar a while back, he could simply register on the Ubuntu Forums under whatever userID he could establish. I am a registered user of the Ubuntu Forums, and post there under the same userID as here on OLO. Once he had familiarised himself with the UF and its PM facility, he could post a PM which only I (apart from the UF administrators) could read. All he would then need to do is alert me in a post to OLO on a thread to which I had posted that there is a PM for me on the UF and what his userID is on that forum, and sooner or later I would read it. I could then choose to reply or not.

No email addresses or other identifying information need be exchanged. If both parties nevertheless wished to exchange such information, only they would get to see it: it is not publicly viewable, and does not involve OLO staff in having to act as intermediaries. All both parties have to do to keep such a channel of communication open is to observe the UF rules.

In all practicality, communications would be as secure as the parties' passwords and computers.

Morning OLO. Hey I was going to say, and Bronwyn pointed it out, that I do have good support at home. Also I’m not a complete twat (maybe just 50%) and besides an e-mail address there was no full name, no telephone number given and no postal address. I’m not normally that sensible but I think I did get a “feeling” early on that something wasn’t quite right.

But it leads to a completely different point, although Forrest’s idea of an alternative site to meet on with private mail is all good it doesn’t really help when someone goes a little off the tracks like what happened recently to me. You can choose not to read them or you can delete them or whatever but it is a very strange thing knowing that something written exists or existed and was directed at you in such a way.

It was only in e-mail, I cannot imagine what it would be like if I was a single person living alone. I think it would have been scary.

Thank you OUG, advice all taken on board and acted upon. And because you are interested in the very human side of humans I will share that I couldn’t read all of what was written to me and I couldn’t read them when the little kids were around because they would make me feel bad (never felt before whatever the feeling was, just felt really bad – grubby would be the closest word I have to the emotion).

PP,
I have suggested to GY that on the next major update he should include chat rooms in which the participants have the ability to exclude/include who they want.
I also suggested a threat/sub thread system that would allow side chats without breaking the flow of the original thread.
He has said he will consider them in due course.

Other like requests would help
He is limited by what the users inform him of what is needed/expected etc.
Over all he is better than most editors...trust me would I lie to you...hmmmm? :-0 don't answer that I may cry.
Cheers

it should be remembered the transmission of unsolicited sexually
explicit emails is a crime punishible with imprisonment under federal
communications laws.

as for me, my hobby is designing and implementing an equal rights
republic and i'm all over the net and easy to find, even though Belly
apparently still thinks i'm female.
so any excuse to set the record straight and promote my hobby will do.
i put this together for the last election in which the Prime Minister
was dumped in his own electorate by a woman.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zCYlv6AUdMY&feature=channel_page
(apologies to the u-tubeless)

Belly, patriarchy has brought humankind to the brink of extinction
such that the provision of an equal rights republic with law enacted
by agreement between women's and men's legislatures is a matter of
male survival.

hey whistler your a guy
he me too

im lesbian
just cant stand men
with their thingies sticking their thing into womans business

nor do woman

if woman chose to look good or bad thats their choice

as they say
what
gives you the right to speak for me...

im dressing for me not you

i thought you a pimply faced germain greer

hey egsaminator
great idea
PAID CHAT ROOMS
..[to pay for live monitoring for mutual saftey]
special pin admitance