I have successfully e-mailed a few Dopers that I’ve wanted to talk to and a few of them have e-mailed me. What can I do to contact someone who posts regularly but their e-mail address is no longer valid? I wanted to give them a link they might be interested in.
What do you suggest when looking for someone who used to post regularly but you don’t see them lately? I may have missed something (given that I was away for a month), but I kinda missed a poster who was quite funny to me.
Well, the place for that would be MPSIMS, except that the administration kinda frowns on personal messages in MPSIMS, of the “Hey, hey, Paula, are you there, please e-mail me” variety. The server is overworked as it is, and we try to keep the clutter down to a minimum, and if [i[everybody* started using MPSIMS for basic “get in touch” threads…
If it’s something of really earth-shattering importance, you can e-mail a mod or admin and ask them to forward it (“I saw that Paula posted that her car was rear-ended by a flame-orange SUV in the parking lot of Nieman-Marcus in Atlanta on Saturday the 29th, and she was mad because she couldn’t get any witnesses, but hey, I was there and I saw the whole thing and I’d be happy to testify, only she doesn’t have an e-mail address listed and she hasn’t posted here in a while, so could you forward this to her?”)
But for anything less, usually they won’t.
Also, the administration feels that people who don’t have an e-mail addy listed do so because they have pretty good reasons, like wanting to be left alone, so they’re generally rather reluctant to forward messages.
So generally you are just out of luck.
Bummer. Thanks, DDG. I was beginning to wonder if anyone was going to fight my ignorance. 
…but since this is already here (sly look) Scylla, if you’re reading this, just an interesting forum I found.
Wait, “e-mail address no longer valid”, you say? That’s a little different from “no address listed”. The administration strongly encourages everyone to keep the address in their profile current, even if it’s not publicly visible (the admins can see the hidden ones, and sometimes need to use them).
Actually, it’s even worse: a functioning e-mail address is a prerequisite for retaining ones posting privileges.
If it’s a matter of life and death, e-mail one of the administrators, and we might mediate for you, keeping the person’s e-mail hidden from you as per their request. You understand that this is not for mundane stuff like a link to the Cartalks message boards.
My advise in this case is just to post it in a relevant thread, for example one in which Scylla posts, and it’s about cars. A new thread in MPSIMS, if you must - but it’s certainly not preferable.
To add a little bit to what Duck Duck Goose said - we don’t have a problem with someone starting a thread in MPSIMS with the title “Interesting / funny website (made me think of you Scylla)” or something like that. Inside the thread you can say “Scylla, could you e-mail me?”
What we don’t want is someone starting threads with the title “Scylla why don’t you answer my e-mails?” And don’t pester someone to e-mail you by following them around the board. (Not that you would do that. Thank you for checking with the staff, LolaBaby.)