Creepy PMs. What do you do?

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@Salamandrina, many (most?) of us have been on the receiving end of this kind of attention since we hit puberty (some before). A creepy PM is creepy, but pretty mild compared to RL stalking. I'm sure people would contact the mods if someone was persistent, but it really would be nice to have a block function.

I've gotten into the habit of screenshotting the message,
embedding the image in a forum,
and shaming them out of the habit.

Sometimes these can lead to RL stalking. One person who was banned from WP started sending me rape threats and violent emails (the guy lives near me) so I went to the cops.

Scary, Hale Bopp.

Meh. That's what freaks me out about this place. There are obviously some markedly disturbed and unstable people here. I think sharing personal photos, name and exact location is something I won't ever do here. I tend to trust people online, met some of my closest friends on the internet and value it as a place to meet like-minded people. It sucks a bit that we have to be more cautious about that here where we might actually meet people we have the most in common with.

QFT

I don't know how much cracking skill it would take to get one's personal information from WP if it isn't freely shared, and I hope I never have to find out.

As others said, maybe they don't know the boundaries, or did something on impulse,
This could potentiall really hurt someone that was nice, but inept.. depends how creepy..

League girl's advice of checking post history is clever.



You are way too nice.

*scampers away from woman's forum

Yes I know, I'm more familiar than I'd like with such behaviour. And I think comparing it with something worse isn't helping, it might even validate it in some people's eyes especially if they already think "it's not a big deal". It is a big deal especially if it makes some women feel unsafe here and even leave the forum.

And it's against the TOS anyway. I would also like a block feature but I have no say in it, maybe we'll get one once the site updates.

@Revival - even if someone does it without malicious intent, a mod could talk to them and explain why it's undesirable and inappropriate. I did it in the past and some people are willing to correct their behaviour once they understand how it affects others,

QFT. Feeling threatened, objectified, etc., sucks and I avoid whole sections of this forum because of certain topics I find both immature and creepy (mainly consisting of posts from *some* of the younger male population). Avoiding threads and posts is easy, PMs not so much.

I know this is OT but it would be nice to have a more prominent way to access mods. I wanted to send a message to someone recently about a member I was struggling with but couldn't find a direct link. I know how to do that now that you've added a link to this thread, but for other new people who are unfamiliar it might be a positive idea.

That's good to know! However this happened to me just the other day, but in an email. I just deleted it, as I always do with emails and names I don't know. Nobody but me has control over that off of WP. A shame too.

Yup. I either do that or if I'm feeling vindictive, I send something even creepier back.

Sallamandrina wrote:

The link is broken in Sallamandrina's post. (I had to remove it from the quote because I am too new to post URLs.)

I've received three PMs since joining less than a month ago. I replied to the first two and directly but politely said I am not interested in communicating through PMs at this time. All of them wanted my personal email address to "send me pictures." They seemed more like spammers than stalkers. It alarms me to hear that some people here have received threats. If I start to feel unsafe here, I will probably just stop participating.

I would definitely use the "block all PMs" feature if this site had one. For now, I will not reply to any more PMs.

if you are receiving phishing or spam emails, please report them here (there is also a description on that thread):
http://www.wrongplanet.net/postt141259.html

if you are receiving inappropriate PMs from a member, anything that makes you uncomfortable, the moderators do not mind reviewing the PM for you and handling the situation with the other member when necessary. Sallamandrina helped me with this once when she was an active mod and i was a member and it really helped - we take harassment very seriously. the current list of mdoerators is here:
http://www.wrongplanet.net/postt158661.html

we can't allow people to block PMs because moderators need to contact members via PM too.

I received a "you have nice eyes" PM.

First off, if you get someone you've never met PMing/messaging you saying "Hi, I"m so and so. age/location/whatever, do you want to see me? Click this link, or respond back!", these are usually spammers. People that do these are normally from porn websites looking for people to go to their website so they can make money, give viruses, or try to get information out of you for identity theft. Report these and delete.
If someone sends you a message that seems creepy, there is a chance they do not realize it is creepy. Let them know that what they said made you uncomfortable, and you are not willing to talk on that subject, or anything like it. Chances are, that person will be embarrassed and either never message you again, or they will respond and apologize.
If someone sends you a message that seems creepy, you respond that it made you uncomfortable, and they respond back in still a creepy manner, say things upsetting, or get angry, then they are either trolls or people not worth spending your time on. Simply report them, delete, and ignore such messages.

I've been frequenting the internet since I was 9 years old. I've learned these are the best ways to deal/work with these sort of messages.

well, you do. sorry to creep you out!! !!

LunaUlysses, the problem with encouraging people to respond back is that the member may just keep contacting other members until s/he finds one that is more naive and vulnerable. it may not be a simple mistake, but an intentional sort of phishing for members to hit on.

if a member alerts the moderators instead, we can stay on top of the people who are scaring/upsetting/potentially victimising other members on here. we can also help them to figure out whether it is an innocent PM or not and give the member advice as to whether to respond (and what to say), or if moderator intervention is required. if it turns out to be a misunderstanding, there is no harm done in bringing it to our attention (privately)

as a mod, it is extremely upsetting to find out that some people are sending all kinds of creepy harassing PMs to multiple members undetected. the targeted people may feel unsafe and leave the site over this sort of thing, and the mods are here to help them feel safer so this continues to be a good support site.

Thanks, Hyperlexian - the link you included worked, and it turns out that a search for the user names of the people who PM'd me turned up posts indicating that these people have spammed others. I should have just done a search before posting anything....

Hyperlexian wrote:

I figured this might be the case, and I understand the need for moderators to be able to PM people. If there were a filter or some such way to block everybody except moderators, I would use it. I am sorry if this has been discussed before elsewhere. I will start making better use of the search feature....