The behavior of the messaging module can be pretty complex in some situations.

This page tries to explain a few rules about how messaging and contacts work.

Contacts rules

1. Every user who has messaging permission other than No Access has a contact list, and they can add/delete contacts from their own contact list. When user A creates a new user B contact then an A-B user contact pair will be created.
2. Every user who has a contact list (has messaging permission other than No Access) can block annoying contacts. Blocked contacts are no longer able to send private message to the user. There is an exception: when the blocked contact replies to a group conversation, see Group conversation rule number two.
3. Every time user A receives a private message from user B (it can be in a new conversation or it can be a reply), if A-B and/OR B-A contact pairs do not exists then they will be created automatically.

Receive private message rules

1. Users must have permission other than No access to be able to send a message.
2. Users who have permission other than No access to messaging can deny receiving private messages in the user preferences form by setting the Other users can send me private message option to off. In this case the user may receive private messages only from users with permissions Read, Send & Delete any messages (including for blocked contacts) or Abuse management.

Send private message rules

1. Users with permission Read, Send & Delete any messages (including for blocked contacts) or Abuse management are allowed to send messages to any other user except those who has No Access permission to messaging.
2. Users with permission Read & Send messages to anyone (except for blocked contacts) are allowed to send messages to any user who may receive private messages (has messaging permission other than No Access and didn’t deny receiving private messages), except for users who blocked them in their own contact list!
3. Users with permission Read & Send messages to people who have me in their contacts list only (except for blocked contacts) are allowed to send messages to any user who may receive private messages and have the sender in their own contact list, and the sender user is not blocked!
4. Users with permission No Access[ are not allowed to send private messages.

Group conversation rules

1. User A is allowed to start a new group conversation if A is allowed to send private messages to every user from the group conversation recipient list.

2. Users may reply only in those conversations where they are involved! Users are allowed to reply to a conversation where they are involved, only if there is at least one user between the recipients who didn’t block the sender. However, if user has permission Read, Send & Delete any messages (including for blocked contacts) or Abuse management, then they can always reply, no matter what (all checks are bypassed).

   Note: Just like in the case of individual messages the contact pairs will be created. If user A send message to user B and user C, then A-B, B-A, A-C, C-A contacts will be created.

For configuring user group messaging permissions, see: User Group Additional Permissions