New here: how do I send a DM?

Community Website and Forum
1

Hi all,

New here— how do I send a dm to someone?

Thank you!
Itww

2

Welcome to the forum

Anywhere you see their username, click on it and you get the option to message them

3

However, it's usually somewhat frowned upon.
The forum lives by having the questions and answers all appear in public.
(and assorted major contributors don't like to get PM'ed questions.)

4

Hi @itww. Direct messages are only enabled after you earn the "Basic" trust level (AKA "TL1") with the forum software.

You can learn about the trust level system, and how you can earn a higher trust level from this article:

(Arduino Forum uses the open source Discourse forum software)

Once you earn DM privileges, please be careful to use them responsibly, and in accordance with the mores of this community dedicated to open sharing of knowledge.

5

Presumably @itww is interested in contacting someone about the contents of a specific thread which is now closed. If that is the case, maybe he/she has enough privileges to flag that thread and ask for it to be reopened ?

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EDIT
Oops. Trust level 0 users can't flag posts according to the link in post #4

6

There is always a chance that the person that @itww wants to contact has left the forum and he will not get a reply.
There are also people that don't want to be contacted via PMs and have blocked PMs.

I guess best approach for @itww will be to start a new topic, explain what needs explaining and add a mention of the person that he wants to contact.

7

Although the general information about trust levels is universally applicable, the information about the specific details provided there is for the default settings of a Discourse instance. Our settings are fairly similar, but some adjustments have been made. One of those is allowing even trust level 0 users the ability to flag posts.

That said, I agree with the advice of the other responders here that it is generally better to use a public forum topic. Raising a flag is the recommended procedure for requesting a topic be reopened, since that will ensure the request is brought to the attention of people who can take care of opening the topic, but even that could be requested here in the public topic, as I am sure to see it here (and others with the necessary privileges as well).