Message etiquette

[undautri]

hey I am trying to figure out when is the appropriate time to send someone a message. Sometimes I really want to PM someone but then I'm not sure if it would be weird or not
I just sometimes don't want to post things in threads because they're a little off topic or the conversation has moved on or I'd rather just have a more private discussion without announcing details to the entire thread because it notifies everyone and the thread is sometimes a little old and...yeah you get the idea.
  But then they don't know me, so I don't know if it's creepy

  In addition, what do I do when I want to compliment someone on here? In real life, I'd just say "oh nice hair, by the way" but online everything's all permanent and that permanence makes things a little confusing on what's weird. I know how to handle things on other sites but this forum is basically a huge support group so I don't know how to handle anything on here. No amount of lurking has made me understand the etiquette. I understand the rules well enough, but what is polite? No idea.
Someone please help me

[Dena]

I may not be a good poster girl on this because many of the PMs I send are moderator nasty grams  I tend to save PMs for when I have something to say that's best said in private or when I feel the information I want to send will be useful to the receiver. Some thread drift is expected and the staff tends to leave it alone unless we discover the thread is running two separate topics. Then we can split and reassemble the thread into two separate threads, each  with their own topic.

I receive PMs on most any topic which I don't mind because my account isn't for my needs but exist for the benefit of all of the Susan's members. To make sure people know that's the case, I included my PM policy in my signature. What you can do is to limit your messaging to a single message until you discover how the member reacts to it. If they welcome the message, then continue the exchange. If you don't get a response, then don't send any more message until you know the person better.

[Devlyn]

hey I am trying to figure out when is the appropriate time to send someone a message. Sometimes I really want to PM someone but then I'm not sure if it would be weird or not
I just sometimes don't want to post things in threads because they're a little off topic or the conversation has moved on or I'd rather just have a more private discussion without announcing details to the entire thread because it notifies everyone and the thread is sometimes a little old and...yeah you get the idea.
  But then they don't know me, so I don't know if it's creepy

  In addition, what do I do when I want to compliment someone on here? In real life, I'd just say "oh nice hair, by the way" but online everything's all permanent and that permanence makes things a little confusing on what's weird. I know how to handle things on other sites but this forum is basically a huge support group so I don't know how to handle anything on here. No amount of lurking has made me understand the etiquette. I understand the rules well enough, but what is polite? No idea.
Someone please help me

The message system is there to be used, knock yourself out. If you do go crazy, you'll run into a limit, but you need to be really churning out messages for that to happen. As far as compliments, the ones that go "Oh my, Miss Devlyn, you sure are pretty" are the best ones. Yes, you should pay those compliments often. Very often. 

Hugs, Devlyn

[sarah1972]

I would second the suggestion to give messages a try. If you are lucky you can find some great friends. Sometimes a PM conversation ends after a few messages and sometimes you will get no response at all. In any case, you will not know unless you try and many members will not mind.

For compliments: just look through some of the threads to see what kind and how people complement each other. Yes, it becomes permanent but a nice compliment is something I hope no one minds to be permanent [emoji3]

[undautri]

Thanks to all of you, you've been a great help!