What is the Inbox? How do I communicate with other LiveJournal users? (original) (raw)

Your Inbox is where you receive notifications and send and receive private messages.

LiveJournal offers a wide range of features that enable you to communicate with your friends and other users, including writing in your own journal, commenting in other journals, and posting in communities. You can make it easier for others to contact you by adding contact information to your profile. If you want to communicate with another user directly, you can send the user a private message, talk to that user in real time using LJ Talk, or use the contact information in that user's profile.

Using the Inbox

The left sidebar includes a count of all unread messages in your Inbox. Pages viewed in the Horizon or Vertigo site schemes include a Messages link in the menu at the top of the page that also shows the total number of unread messages. You can have up to 2000 messages and notifications in your Inbox. If new messages arrive while your Inbox is at the limit, the oldest non-bookmarked messages in your Inbox will be deleted automatically in order to bring your Inbox back under the limit.

Private Messages

You can send a new message to another LiveJournal user by clicking the New Message button in the Inbox or by clicking the Send Message link on the user's profile. The profile link will only be active if you can send this user a message.

You can restrict who can send you messages at the Edit Profile page (Contact Info > LJ User Messaging):

It is also possible to ban individual users from sending you private messages by banning them from commenting in your LiveJournal. Please note that by restricting who can send you messages, you may prevent people from replying to messages you have sent. Specifically, sending someone a message does not automatically grant the ability to reply to you. If you receive a private message containing spam, you can report the user by clicking the "Mark as Spam" link at the bottom of the message.

Your account type determines how many messages you can send per day. Accounts with Professional and Permanent package of service have the highest daily limit (500 points), other accounts have 200 points. Owners of communities with Professional or Permanent package of service have additional 2000 points per day. Sending a message to someone who does not list you as a Friend costs 10 points, while replying to a message you received or sending a message to someone who lists you as a Friend costs 1 point.

If you exceed your limit, you will see the error message: "This message will exceed your limit and cannot be sent". If your quota could be extended by upgrading your account, you should see one more message: "Upgrade your account to increase your message limit".

The message limit is calculated for the past 24 hours, but not for the calendar day. Please note that as the limit is calculated for the past day, the amount of messages you will be able to send will increase gradually as the time when you've sent previous messages goes beyond the said 24-hours period.

Other Contact Methods

In addition to private messaging, you may be able to reach other LiveJournal users through:

Please note that not every LiveJournal user will be available through all of the methods mentioned above.