This works well, and now that the stream of messages is retained, a reasonable conversation can be held privately between reviewers.

What's to dislike?

It's great having this feature, but I have a couple improvements to suggest. First, we need a sent messages folder: it's too easy to forget what we sent last, and lose the thread of a conversation (especially when you have several going at once, as I sometimes do). PBeavr has a couple of superb suggestions too with the user-blocking and buddy lists. Anyway, sending/receiving messages is one of the fun things about RIA.

I love this feature. It allows me to contact other reviewers and argue my beliefs and maybe praise them for a comment. I have had a very provocative message from Lotus(thanx) and this has really made this site the one I keep coming back to. It's so easy,to. All you do is click a few buttons and you can instantly start up a debate. great feature!!

A very enjoyable perk to this website. I must say that I have enjoyed talking back and forth with some of my fellow reviewers on this site (Solenoid DH, Castlebee, Bigbaby, President X-D and more). They are all intelligent in their own way, and always have something interesting to say in their posts, and I see nothing wrong with sending them a messege of appreciation for their intelligent ratings. It's very easy to leave messages for other reviewers, and had this not been a feature of this website, I probably would not have remained here for this long.

It's pretty easy and intuitive. I can't really see how they could possibly make it any easier, except maybe to have a little button under the "Was this comment helpful?" line that says "Leave a Message here", but that's not necessary.

I think Personal Messages are a good idea because people can communicate with each other if they want to. However, I've received a few very hurtful PM's in the past, so I don't bother reading any sent to me anymore. I haven't read my PM's in awhile. I think we should be able to choose who we don't wish to receive messages from and which messages we want or don't want to read.

I love getting personal messages!! This is a very good idea becuase you can tell other reviwers what is happening and to have genuine debates. When I first starting leaving comments, I thought that everyone on the site had hated me. Now, by other reviwers leaving me messages, I had learned that there was a prankster going around and clicking everything not helpful.

This is a great feature. I have sent only two personal messages since I began contributing to this site and I have received two, but it feels good to know that I have hit a nerve with someone. If someone wants to send a message to another reviewer then it is going to happen. I think that if a person doesn't want personal messages sent to them then they should not leave any comments on this site.

I have had other users send me personal messages just to be helpful on something I wrote. This feature is very nice and it's private. When I first used this site I was able to personally ask someone specifics on it and the friendly person replied almost immediatly. All in all it is a very easy way to share things we don't need everyone else to see.

Hi my name is Sarah Kimball and I am a student at Tufts University. I am writing an article about online reviewers and sites and I was wondering if anyone wanted to let me know about themselves, how they started writing reviews, why the do it, how useful they are etc. Email me at sarah.kimball@tufts.edu and i guess we'll see how easy it is to contact other reviewers! :)

I personally like this feature. It is very easy to do. I think it is nice we can send a message to another reviewer and have it be private. The reviewer has the option of reading the message or deleting it so if they do not like getting messages they can just push delete.I have sent a few messages myself and even received some and so far I have enjoyed this feature.

This is just like rating. Click the person's name, click on "leave a personal message for ____," and add the message, and submit.

I agree with Magellan - this feature is top! But it would be better to be informed if you have new messages & in that case; how many. It's annoying to watch that you've got 4 messages & you think all of them are new, but in reality NO ONE is...

What a great feature this is, and it seems to be pretty straightforward - just click on a user name, and you can send a personal message. I think the notification when you have messages waiting could be a little clearer. Maybe have a sound when a new message arrives? Or some kind of indicator that shows up on every page (not just the home page)?