Mark Dain
Yeah, Sublevel used to have private (user to user) messaging ages back. Unfortunately Lucian (the guy who runs the site) frequently culls Sublevel of anything that's perceived as bloat; like a feature that is rarely used. I actually think DM's being rarely used is a good thing; public discourse, where appropriate, is good as it can involve more people. As for the phone number thing, basically
@eric moved to a city near me so we actually met up in person once.