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I think we're talking about PMs from other members. Indeed some of the discussion upthread suggests exactly this - that when one of us sees something we don't like, we PM the member concerned. (See Grinity's signature about wanting a PM if she offends, for example, but the idea is that this should be the default.) I think the argument is that a private PM is less inflammatory than commenting in public, and easier on Mark than PMing the moderator (who probably doesn't read every thread and so wouldn't be immediately up to speed anyway). As I think I said up there, I don't like this idea myself at all (e.g. for precisely the reason shown up in the elephant signature thread - you get a critical PM, you don't immediately agree, you still need to come to the board to see whether others share the feeling). However, given that the idea is on the table, attracted some support, and we're "in limbo" as far as actual guidelines are concerned, my feeling is that if someone is trying out the private PM, s/he is acting reasonably, assuming the PM in question was polite. If we don't want this done, we should have forum guidelines that say what people should do if they have an issue with what someone writes.