Hi, this is not what the site was designed for. It is for asking questions and getting Support. Private Messaging is for Support to talk to people in Private and is not a public messaging app.

So this has now been answered.

The way it is now has been this way for several years now.

If Mozilla was going to implement the more traditional way of registering a account like some forum software has then they would have done so years ago.

Most people new to this site have a issue(s) they want help on and Mozilla would prefer people ask it as a new thread and not hijack an existing thread that has same or similar question. The more traditional way of registering would increase the amount of using a existing thread hijacks upon first post. https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/forum-rules-and-guidelines#w_posting-support-requests

Plus this Ask a Question introduces you to the Knowledge base https://support.mozilla.org/ during the process which may answer some or all of their issue(s) before submitting.

A small bonus is this has helped keep Spam threads and posts to a minimum. On the independent forums.mozillazine.org with the more traditional method of registering a new account, there have been more spam attempts vs legit posts by new members first postings each day. However many may not realize that occurs as new members first post requires post approval there.

Unless you have been around for a long while many may not realize Mozilla actually allowed Guest posting during the first year. This was not the best idea then and certainly not now.

Mozilla is not signifigantly working on this old Kitsune platform anymore (unless that has changed in last few months). Early last year Mozilla actually moved the site to a Lithium platform that they had high hopes for but it had a number of issues and Mozilla then moved it back to Kitsune after a while.

Btw now that you are registered you can discuss about this in https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/forums/contributors as this Firefox section is for desktop Firefox.

Pkshadow said

Hi, this is not what the site was designed for. It is for asking questions and getting Support. Private Messaging is for Support to talk to people in Private and is not a public messaging app. So this has now been answered.

I think you have failed to understand my question.

This site does have a private messaging function. Whether it was originally intended for users to communicate is irrelevant, since that is indeed what the design allows. There is a "private message" link in every user profile on the site--not just support staff. If private messages were supposed to only be initiated by support staff, well, clearly there was a flaw in the implementation, because that is not how the site ACTUALLY works. (Meaning that the originally intended function is rather moot.)

The issue I spoke of was that you cannot use the aforementioned private messaging link unless you have registered, which there is no explicit manner of doing. The only way to register is by asking a question.

Thus, I was forced to ask a question. Thanks very much to the moderator who answered me. The information you have given is very good to have.