To me tells will always be OOC. I count any tell as ooc. If I ask for someone's loc, when I show up, I always play it as if I was just passing through.
I actually hate when people send me tells with thigns like... "a bird carrying a note..."
I'm indoors, or in a dungeon, or whatever... yeah. A bird's gonna find me there. Or hey, every bird knows what I look like after all...
I used to reply with... "Shoots the bird out of the air and cooks it..."
Followed by...
"So what did you want anyway?"
If someone wants to send me a message, they can use the forums, it feels more official then. We have a private message system in place. Actual 'mail' or 'messages' sent to a character of mine should just be sent via a PM, or in the Wild Surge forum. But things in green, are ooc to me. Course... I treat party talk as ooc too, unless on a Gm'd quest...
I'm old fashioned though.