Public visitor messaging on profile pages with 'conversation' feature (1 Viewer)

[Shannon Reuss]

And now...the continuing story of the forum upgrades.
I present: Public visitor messaging on profile pages with 'conversation' feature.

What are Visitor Messages?
Visitor messages are publicly viewable messages posted on member profile pages. To post a message, click on the 'Visitor messages' tab, and use the form at the top of the section. You will only be able to use certain formatting in these messages, as described underneath the edit box. This message will be viewable by all visitors to this profile, including guest users and search engine robots. To communicate privately with a member, send a Private Message instead.
Visitor messages can be edited or deleted by site moderators or the member who owns the profile. If you see a visitor message that is not appropriate, you can alert the moderators by clicking on the 'Report' link. The 'View Conversation' link allows you to view all visitor messages between the member and the owner of the profile.

 

[Shannon Reuss]

Visitor messaging is basically just to leave quick viewable-by-everyone messages to friends and other members. This is a common feature on social messaging boards like Facebook.

But you have options.
1) You can leave your profile options as-is which means any member can leave you a message.
2) You can turn off visitor messaging completely so that no one can leave you public messages
3) You can choose to allow only people on your friends or contacts list to be able to leave messages for you.

To change from the default go to your User CP (Control Panel--first option on the green navigation bar above)
Click 'edit options' under 'Settings and Options' in the left-hand column.
Scroll down to 'Messaging and Notification' and at the very bottom of that section you may choose to disable visitor messaging or limit its use to only friends and contacts (and moderators).
Click the 'Save Changes' button at the very bottom of the page and you're done!

Just one last reminder that visitor messages left on your profile are publicly viewable by members, guests and search bots alike. Apparently on some other boards some members didn't realize until it was too late that their messages were public. Now you know and have been warned.