Contacting the disabled

July 4, 2011 2:41 PM

I should probably know this but if I ever did, I've forgotten, and I'm drawing a blank hunting around right now. Is there a way to MeMail someone who has disabled his/her account, or otherwise find useful contact info from their page?

Also, interrobang: WTF happened there? I missed it.

posted by Decani to MetaFilter-Related at 2:41 PM (14 comments total)

Nope, there's no set way to contact them. Any mefimail you had sent before they disabled is still there in their inbox if they come back.

This is tricky partly because we have a pretty firm "we do not give out your email to people without your explicit permission" rule in modland, and very few people mention anything about specific exceptions to that when they close their accounts. So it's sort of a bummer but we're pretty much bound by sensible privacy stuff to not be very helpful beyond maybe mentioning that so-and-so also hangs out on Metachat or something in the cases where that's essentially public info.

As far as interrobang, he took a break, was feeling frustrated about some site stuff. Hopefully he'll be back.
posted by cortex (staff) at 2:49 PM on July 4, 2011

A lot of these people are on twitter. Often with the same names.
posted by cjorgensen at 3:46 PM on July 4, 2011

Let's try this again without trashing other users who aren't in the thread. Okay?
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 3:54 PM on July 4, 2011 [1 favorite]

Right: I know what you mean, Decani, there are some great users whose contributions I really liked. They made lurking here an invaluable part of my free-time. I will cherish the memories, but I don't really have any reason communicate anything other than a favorite here and there. It's strange how I love the drama on metatalk but hate it when things don't work out.
posted by kittensofthenight at 4:00 PM on July 4, 2011

I still miss The Straightener :(
posted by subbes at 5:11 PM on July 4, 2011 [3 favorites]

Whatever happened to that Eideteker cat?
posted by Eideteker at 8:16 PM on July 4, 2011

oh, n/m, he's back
posted by Eideteker at 8:16 PM on July 4, 2011

I seem to recall Jessamyn saying she preferred not to have "whatever happened to X" discussions on MeTa. Maybe I'm over-reading that comment and it was specific to that particular thread, though.
posted by Conrad Cornelius o'Donald o'Dell at 9:42 PM on July 4, 2011

Maybe I'm over-reading that comment

Nope, that's exactly what I meant. At the point at which this thread is going from "How do I contact people in general?" to "What ever happened to X?" people may want to email us instead of asking in MeTa. We'll be happy to let you know, if we know.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 9:45 PM on July 4, 2011

Whatever happened to Saturday night, when you dressed up sharp and you felt all right?
posted by ego at 10:30 AM on July 5, 2011 [1 favorite]

Nope, there's no set way to contact them. Any mefimail you had sent before they disabled is still there in their inbox if they come back.

Ah, okay. So I wasn't just failing to spot something obvious. I'm not sure why Memail has to be disabled when someone disables their account, though. It seems like it ought to be possible to still send mail on the off-chance they check that even after they've pulled the plug. No big deal, of course, but I was curious.
posted by Decani at 12:31 PM on July 5, 2011

And I understand that the pages must be set up so that they need to be active in order to access mail, of course. I guess I was just hoping it didn't need to be that way.
posted by Decani at 12:32 PM on July 5, 2011

Some people close their account as a way to walk away from mefi, whether temporarily or for good; not continuing to get messages from people on the site via the site is part of the default assumption we're left to make about that. It's imperfect for folks who *do* want to be available, but the opposite arrangement is far more imperfect and more likely to be actively problematic.
posted by cortex (staff) at 12:33 PM on July 5, 2011

What ever happened to Baby Jane? Will success spoil Rock Hunter? Who framed Roger Rabbit?
posted by box at 4:36 PM on July 5, 2011