I think I have read an email to mods will help me, but I also think I have read an email to mods will not help me. And I’m unable to find guidelines via a search (mostly, I’m sure, because I’m an idiot).
If I (for example) wish to pick Collunsbury’s brain over a minor and old economic point, and his email isn’t enabled, how do I go about trying to get in touch with him, short of virtually jumping up and down and waving my arms in a vain GD hijack?
I needed to contact someone recently and I was able to do so through an admin; I emailed Gaudere, who emailed the member, asking if they would be prepared to divulge their email address to me, this way nobody has their email address divulged without their consent.
In my particular case, I considered it to be of high importance (but then, I would, wouldn’t I?); I’m not sure how many such requests the admins get, but I suspect it could be a problem if they had to deal with this all the time.
I think that’s what I heard, too - you just email an admin or moderator. Too bad vBulletin isn’t set up so that you can email someone directly from the board without actually seeing their address (that is, instead of opening up a new email message in your own email client).
Another way to do this is to compose your email and have one of the Admins (I use Tubadiva) to forward the email to the recipient. That way the recipient can maintain the confidentiality of their email address.
Obviously, as a matter of just being polite, first ask the Admin if they’re willing to forward your email. And this would only be done this way for the initial email contact. We certainly couldn’t expect anyone to be the middle person in an ongoing email exchange.
If the recipient wants to correspond with you, then they’ll answer your email.
Or… you could have just asked me. Collunsbury and I communicate frequently. He has asked me to edit and revise many of his posts. 
dantheman, vBulletin does have that capability. It’s called Private Messaging. It’s just been disabled in the SDMB. Not sure why, but I assume it has to do with the hamsters.
Oh, I see. Didn’t know that’s what its purpose was. Thanks.
(Yahoo groups does this, and I’ve always loved it - except it hides only the end of the email address. So if I were dantheman@hotmail.com, what the sender would see would be dantheman@hotm… or something like that. Kinda easy to figger it out, in that case.)
Try e-mailing a staff member and explain why it’s important/vital that you contact the other member via e-mail. If the reasons sound convincing then the staff member will forward it.
Ah, well…it’s neither important nor vital. He never came back to a thread, that’s all. No biggie.