As promised, here's the concensus of the list of things soulcasters believe are important when using the private message feature of this website. Keep in mind, this is NOT supported by the admins at soulcast, this is my compilation alone, and i take full responsibility for the content.
#1 - You gotta write em to get em.
#2 - write them when things are too personal for blogs.
#3 - always be polite and return a pm.
#4 - do it to brighten someone's day.
#5 - do it to cheer someone up.
#6 - if you're a woman, don't make the first move with a man you don't know.
#7 - use it to get to know people better.
#8 - paste the last pm in the pm you're writing. (passiontravelr gets the credit for this idea)
#9 - what happens in pm's, stays in pm's.
#10 - send a copy to yourself for backup. (evil_twin gets the credit for this one)
#11 - pm to flirt without taking crap.
AND THE MOST IMPORTANT RULE, AT LEAST TO ME, IS:
#12 - USE IT TO MAKE FRIENDS!!!!! (mamie is the one who brought this one up)
I compiled this list because when I first came here, I really didn't know how the community thought about or used this feature, so I just sort of ignored it in an attempt to not step on anyone's foot. If there are any other sc'ers out there that don't have any guidelines for this feature, I hope this will give you a little better understanding of how and when and why we use it.
Thank you to everyone who participated. I really enjoyed this exercise :-)
