Would you send someone a PM

To clarify why you recommended someone else for a forum thread recommendation?

Personally I might consider doing this if I was recommending someone else over a personal friend but I would never consider it to a complete stranger. This recently happened to me and the reason provided was because they didn't think it fair "we won all the business".

Felt this was really poor from the person in question who to be fair does talk a whole lot of nonsense anyway judging by their forum contribution.

Agree wholeheartedly with the post from BrotherJamesJAM above.

Also would like to point out recommendations come as a result of hard work, time, providing a good service and so on.

Just. Saying.

T'was a joke James, it's like getting angry cos another team keep winning....

Didn't you see the emoticons?

if you insist - no need to call me either please to explain a forum post 

So you weren't in a meeting!  tut tut...

Here's the original message.

sorry but i didn't mention your name and now you are posting private messages in public - and yes I am in a meeting thankyou - but that is none of your business.

Whether you think it was funny or not personally think it was a stupid thing to do now you have decided to share with the world how you like to operate. 

If you don't agree no problem

Life's too short, best of luck with the biz.

certainly is

how's the meeting going?

good

Excellent, have an olive branch 

thanks

When it comes to reccomendations, I would always refer the person I thought was best for the job. I don't think I would need to explain myself to the person overlooked, and if you have to justify your actions, then you don't believe in them as strongly as you think imho. 

I definitely think there's a point to private messages staying private, I would hate it if someone posted the message they had sent to me, no matter how much they were joking. #justsaying! 

When you refer someone, if they do a bad job, it reflects on you, as much as them!

It was engagement Helen, that's all.  99%+ of the pm's I give and receive on the site are very well received, and very often I make and receive phone calls as well about posts which is great. As you know, without the engagement, there's no return. However, this was the first time in ages I've had someone not take my call 

Would I post some of the private messages that I get in here.. of course not!  I posted it to get the thing out in the open, otherwise people can't really see ALL the info - and I think that's wrong.  There's so much info that's "cooked" as it is   I've sent those sort of pm's before and they usually get get a "haha" reply....

To answer the question, I don't see anyone on here as a complete stranger at all and I know my upfront approach sometimes shocks people. I really think people should send more pm's and call each other more. 

I see it more as, "there are no strangers here, only friends who haven't met"

For every person who thinks my contributions are nonsense (and some are!!!), 10 people think they are useful.

Unless it was a friend who I thought may wonder why I'm not referring them, then no.  I wouldn't feel the need to justify giving a contrary recommendation, nor would I word it in such a way as to suggest that the only reason I made that recommendation was to mix things up and stop someone getting work.

Whether that was the intention of not, I don't know, but your message is not what you say, it's what is read; and from reading that DM I completely understand it being taken in a negative light and daresay I would have interpreted it the same way.

While I admire the bright and cheery notion that "strangers are just friends who haven't met yet" - I know I'm not bright and cheery, and don't think it's anything James has ever been accused of either.  You can't force that, and while the PM may have been tongue in cheek, conveying that to a stranger requires rapport, which isn't always going to spark, and certainly didn't exist in this instance.

It's kind of like chatting up an attractive girl in a club, then going to her mate and explaining "sorry, the reason I chatted her up and not you is because she's more attractive than you are".  Well intended or not, that's rarely going to get a great reaction.