chatting and mail box help

Hey! I'm new here, I'm a little confused about the mail box. Some people have been starting chats with me but sometimes the message goes away or I accidentally close the box and cant find it again , so I cannot reply? Also my mail box has messages but it says I cannot reply for another 3 hours? Is the mail box and chat box the same thing?? Also if you chatted or messaged me and I haven't replied I promise I'm not ignoring you, I'm just struggling!

Mails are different from chats as far as I'm aware , you have something like 24hours before you can private mail,generally if you close a chat box just click on whoever chatted with you and it should still be there, don't know if that works of the person you chat to goes offline though lol

why the 24 hour thing?

No idea why the 24 hour thing lol

Hi, I'm a moderator for this site, There is a user guide to the left in the User menu that's worth reading but there has been some updates to the site recently that Karl (the boss) has done. So bare with me while I explain!! The live chat has been changed it will not be on the forum pages, the mail box and the video page. So you can read it, When you join the site you can't send messages for I think 24hrs (maybe less!). The site is being upgraded at the moment so there maybe more changes to come so I will let you know what's been happening when I know. Any questions please just P.M me.

Why can't we send messages for 24hours when we first join?