Letter? Or do you mean email or private msg?

If it were me doing the breaching, I would use a vpn that changes my ip address to a different country, every time I logged on but there's probably a way around that. I'm not that tech savvy but know how to keep myself secure, most of the time.

Bob, this is an ideal opportunity to peek behind the curtain of DS.

Keep a list of the spammers - send one in - see if they all go and let us know.

I can't help thinking if it was that simple there would be alot less spam here than there is - DS could simply check the new members and ban say 1 in 100 and they would all go.

I suspect Vet is right - but you could test this.

How about private group messages on here? would that work?

If it would work it's at least worth a try especially for sensitive subjects.... Some discussions are fine if they're more open on here however some things we discuss really should be private

Good idea Mid...… I'm also for anything that works for everyone else

Private Msging is one member to another. What we would need at a minimum is GROUP msging. Here is the status on that:

What Happened to Community Group Messages?
Frequently Asked Questions Community Groups DailyStrength Member Care 3 years ago
We are still building out the site and are working on bringing back group messaging. Please check the DailyStrength .....

Note: 3 YEARS AGO.

PMs aren't the way to go. You can't create a distribution list so that means each time you have to add the dozen or so names individually. Also messages will tend to cross over each other and I think it will become a bit of a mess.

For example if I ask a question via PM which I send to everyone and then everyone replies I will have 12 seperate replies - and so will everyone else.

Good idea Fish. The last time I checked, they were all still there.

Group messaging and group chat and instant private chat are things we once had at the old site, and we need those things here if we have any intention of growing this place.

There are some things I would like to say to the group at times that I don't want DS to hear, ...not that it's anything harmful to DS or someone else but ideas that I would not be ready to share with anyone who works for DS....like venting for example. Sometimes we have to dump out the trash so that we have room for the better stuff. You know what I mean. It's nothing I would want someone to take personally but sometimes people need a sounding board.

I remember when they took meebo away from us. I can't remember if Sharecare owned it then but at the time, they had no intention of replacing it with something else. now that we are here, their message is that it's on their wish list.

I think group messages are worth a try. I got one from Mid

Meebo was a 3rd party plugin. I think Google then bought it and killed it. So, for once, this wasn't something DS/ ShareCare did but was something outside of their control.

However, when they rebuilt the site I think it was acknowledged that chat was the one thing members wanted and it wasn't delivered. I think we've been told it might be coming but it's nearly 3 years now.

I agree that we really need to see what everyone has to say in one forum or I know I won't be able to follow the discussion

If it's just for a head's up I think the group message is okay but for a conversation it might be hard to follow

For anything sensitive I don't think this works though

There are plenty of options all over the internet for an instant chat where you can talk one on one or invite others in for a group chat, You can embed it on your websight like meebo was and all they ask for is a monthly donation of any amount of money that DS can afford. The ones that don't ask for money show ads. So there's all kinds of options. If money was an issue, I don't think we would have any trouble raising it and I mentioned that to DS on the feedback form but whoever answered, didn't seem to want to talk about that. They wanted me to get alot of people to join DS. I have done that in the past but the problem is, there are so few people in most of the groups that you have to wait weeks to get a reply to a post, if you get one at all, so nobody hangs around anymore.

live chat isn't going to do it. we are not all online at the same time.

Until we hear from DS/Sharecare, what would we be talking about? Our hands are tied to do anything to fix the problems - we're not administrators of the site. The hands-on tech stuff has to be done by them. I think we have repeatedly made our position clear - that we are dedicated to the mission and existence of the site and will and HAVE done everything possible to help keep it going, and none of us wants to see it disappear.

I guess what we're really waiting for is a position statement from DS as to its intentions and overall status.

The problems are still there..... we've asked... no answer...I mean, how long does it have to check with higher ups before releasing the statement if there is one?

And I got the results just as predicted. Individual messages which is NOT what we want.

So, thank you to each of you who responded to that experiment...and for your patience in helping me to see exactly why it does not work.

I know that Jesse and Shelly both want us to be part of the team...at least that's the feeling I get from them when I do hear from them.

I hope we find something that works.