Suggestions

1 - Tried that before. All you get is masses of spam. No thanks.
I'm pretty sure all the established members will agree with me.

2 and 3 - yes, it does

4 - This is a general help forum, not a dating/friendship/relationship site.
That means there's no need for such information to be displayed in posts.

To answer #4 there is a way to search.
You click on the network section in the green banner and you can choose with nationality in which country you want to search. Then you get a list with members. And the info you need is also available under the avatar of the member.

Your messages are not "BLOCKED", you're required to PARTICIPATE in the forums to activate your message privileges. That means you must post topics and reply to other topics that have already been posted, make substantial contributions and not just say "hi" or post a smiley.

Why somebody would register here and then think they need to start sending out private messages to people they don't even know simply is a logic that escapes me. Why would I want to hear from you if I don't know you? Why would you want to contact me if you don't know me? So why then should I have to wait to get something I don't want, something that annoys me from someone before I can block them? Doesn't it make my life a lot easier if all that useless CRAP just doesn't reach my inbox in the first place? I sure think it does.

None of us can send out COPY & PASTE messages to several members, again I can't understand any valid reason that anyone would even need to. If you can't be bothered to take the time to compose an individual message to me then it is probably something I don't want or need in the first place, especially coming from somebody I don't even know.

I'm a member of the Experts Team and if I need to send out an important message I can send it to 20 members who are on my contact list at one time, I type only one message and just add the 20 names in the "Send to" box. (But they must FIRST be on my contact list). Know what, I've hardly ever used that feature, even that isn't really necessary here. But if the people are on YOUR contact list YOU can do it too, it that's what floats your boat!

Expat-blog is a community of expats all over the world who share their experience to help each other with information, advice and encouragement. I have a contact list that is pages long, you can too, it's easy to make friends here. Where does sending mass mailouts enter into that picture?