Handling Private Messages, or how I am trying not to suck as much regarding them

[NightLux]

I make no qualms about admitting that in the past, I was simply horrible at keeping up with PMs.  I would check on a new message only to then have to do something, so I'd close the window or go elsewhere, only to forget to reply or do whatever they were asking.  I mean, I was bad.  It was shameful.  I'd mentioned this a few times and was told that you can see which ones you've replied to by the little green arrow that was on the far left.  That blew my mind and that additional bit of information helped.  But I was still bad.  Still shameful.

I don't like to be shameful.

I took inspiration from the Elliquiy Improver that Ssieth in her infinite glory had pieced together (seriously, check it out.  It changes lives!) and decided that I could do something similar with private messages.  It's taken some effort and its not quite as sleek as what Ssieth has put together, but its been working recently.  And, in the spirit of community, I wanted to outline what I did.

First, one key fact about private messages that I didn't realize is you could create labels.  I created one for solo games I have ("Solo"), another group games I'm in ("Group") and then another for the group game I run ("Dorander").  In theory, you can have as many labels as you want (I have a lot more, but its not necessary to show the depths of my OCD).  To get to create labels, when in your messages, click "Preferences" and then "Create Labels".  Its pretty self-explanatory from there.  (Oh, and a warning, don't delete labels.  I've been told it can do weird things.)

But I found that this wasn't enough.  If I was at my computer when a message came in, I would try to remember to apply the label but often times I'd forget, or I'd be checking from my phone and I personally hate the touch screen at times, so really the labels weren't being used as much as they could.  In fact, a week after I created them, I was back trying to handle PMs like I was before.  I had a lot of old PMs that I would need to go back and classify (or delete if it wasn't needed) and, man, that was a lot of work since I couldn't quickly see what was not labelled.  Again, shameful.  But then I realized that I could make one rule and one more label and solve this problem.

Second, then, is the rules you can create.  To create them, its under "Preferences" again, only "Manage Rules".  Now rules function pretty simple.  Either one of the criteria has to be true or all of them, and then it does something.  In this case, we're going to use it to apply a label.  A new label I didn't have before.  But first, then, we're going to have to create it.

• Get to your messages
• Click "Preferences" and "Manage Labels"
• At the bottom, you should see "Label Name" and a text box.  Type in "No Tags" and click "Add New Label".  Also create any labels you want to use when categorizing your inbox.
• Now click "Preferences" and "Manage Rules"
• At the bottom right, click on "Add New Rule"

So at this point we're going to add an all-encompassing rule - if I receive a message from a sender's group ("Lord", "Lady", etc), I'm going to apply the "No Tags" label.  Only I want it from all groups.  So under the "Criteria" select "Sender Group" and select each group.  The "major" groups here at Elliquiy, including the shiny tags (those who have donated to support Elliquiy) are:

• Lord
• Lady
• Liege
• Legate
• Knight
• Dame
• Champion
• Centurion

You can only select one at a time in a criteria, so you'll create eight lines.  Click "Add Criteria" to generate another box.  (That said, I don't know the maximum number of criteria a rule supports, so I would just limit it to these groups.  I'll explain further another reason.)  Once you have all eight, you've covered most of the members of Elliquiy.

Next, we need to make sure the rule notes that it should apply whenever one of these are met.  To do that, click "When Checking Criteria" and select "Any criteria can be met".  (In boolean logic, this is the "OR".  The other option is the "AND".  Sorry, I'm a nerd)

Finally, under "Actions" select "Label Message With" and then select "No Tags" from the dropdown box.  Save the rule.

And we're done!  From now on, any message you receive will automatically add the "No Tags" to the message.  This means, at any point, you can filter any new messages that you haven't labeled with something else.  To do this, you just click "Labels" in your inbox and select "No Tags".  You can then click the message and add the new label, then after the refresh, lower down in that same drop-down box you can remove the "No Tags" label as well (or any other label).  (Note, I will expand this section later)

Now, back to why I only selected those eight.  The other people who will be PM'ing you would be Mentors, Oracles and Gods/Goddesses/Genies.  These are the volunteers and the staff that help to run Elliquiy.  For these, I don't really want them in my "No Tags" group as I kind of view them as an email from the boss - I want to make sure they're not mixed with other random messages.  For this, I created an "Maybe Official" label and repeated the steps above, but just for these groups.  That way they get caught in a special filter and I can see if they are something I need to reply to (I'm a Mentor, so I have some duties normal members don't) or if its just one of my writing partners who just happens to also be an Oracle, Mentor, etc.  But there's no reason you have to take this step if you don't want.

But wait, you might say, what about all my old messages?  How do I filter them?

I'm glad you asked.  If you go back to your list of rules ("Preferences" and "Manage Rules") you can see an option to select a particular rule and, down below, a "Apply Rules Now".  If you select the rule you just created and select this option, you'll get a popup that says "Are you sure you wish to apply the current rules to all personal messages?"  Click yes and now the label will be applied to every message in your inbox.

Now every old message and all the news ones, as they come, are flagged with "No Tags".  Simply filter your messages for this label as above and then, one by one, you can apply the real label and remove this one.  The great thing about the way the filter works is one you've removed the "No Tags" label, that message will not longer be displayed.  But, of course, make sure you do actually label it with something or we're back to not being able to find those without labels.

Now whenever you check your messages, just select "No Tags" and any new messages, even ones you might have replied to, will be displayed so you can organize.  And its helped me to get better... and hopefully it'll help you as well.  Let me know if you have any questions or need any more feedback.  I'd be more than happy to help.

(Also note, I might go back and change the format of this post if its not clear.  This is just my first pass, so I apologize in advance.)

[Gypsy]

Just be aware that deleting labels can cause issues -- at least this used to be the case.   :-)

[NightLux]

Just be aware that deleting labels can cause issues -- at least this used to be the case.   :-)

I included an offhand reference to that, but you're right.  I went back and made sure it stood out.