MrStormy Posted November 23, 2004 Share Posted November 23, 2004 Folks, I want to weigh in with my 2 cents here. I have seen this subject debated on countless forums. Both side have merit, but I fall on the side that it is my forum and what I do to enforce my rules and code of conduct is my business. They may be PM's/private messages, but, IT IS MY FORUM, and as the provider of the forum, I reserve the right to monitor all things that occur on my forum, INCLUDING private messages. If you don't like that, then you don't have to register and participate on my forums. If you want privacy then sorry a forum and PM's are not the correct place to communicate. Don't get me wrong here, our staff does not look at every pm sent, there is hundreds and we don't have time for that, but we do monitor troublemakers and people we feel should be watched closely. We also look at pm's when there is a complaint. The Private Messages are private in the reguards the general public cannot read them. As An admin of our forum, we grant the ability and the right to monitor PM's for trouble. Again, I think this is not an invasion of privacy on a PUBLIC fourm adminstered by me and my staff. We will use whatever means available to us to ensure people are behaving as they should and adhering to our code of conduct. You also have to remember, not everyone will report inappropriate pm's, which allows a troublemaker to go on to the next victum. I have had instances where people mass pm a keylogger or trojan to hundreds of people on my forum. I used to use phphbb and had a pm viewer that also let me delete or archive the pm's. This was handy to clean this up and remove these pm's before a majority of the users saw them. I also want to point out the nature of the forum plays into this decision also. I run a forum mainly populated by younger children. I have a lot of rude immature people on my forum. I step in to stop trouble before it get's out of hand. I also want to ensure that some of the adults that visit the forums are not using my forum to lure children into an inappropriate conversations. Each situation differs and to say looking at pm's is an invasion of privacy without understanding the reasons some admins need this is wrong. If my forum were more adult oriented, then checking PM's may not be as necessary. If you want to run your forums and not look at pm's, then that's your perogative, but please don't come down on me and others that do not agree with your philosophy. We have our reasons to need a pm logging mechanism and I fully would love to see it added. It should be able to be disabled for those that don't want this feature however. Well I'll get off my soapbox now.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
michaelp Posted November 23, 2004 Share Posted November 23, 2004 A PM Log would just be a convinience because for abuse cases the admin can just look at the database itself...PM's are not encrypted, so a mod is just a quick method to see them. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Oncle Tom Posted November 23, 2004 Share Posted November 23, 2004 As you said, it is YOUR forum, so mod it if you have a specific desire. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
krocheck Posted November 23, 2004 Share Posted November 23, 2004 A PM Log would just be a convinience because for abuse cases the admin can just look at the database itself...PM's are not encrypted, so a mod is just a quick method to see them.<{POST_SNAPBACK}> I see your point, but if someone deletes a PM, it is deleted from the database. A PM logger would store them in a different table so that they would not get deleted when the member deletes them. Keith Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
andrew_wallasey Posted November 24, 2004 Share Posted November 24, 2004 I see your point, but if someone deletes a PM, it is deleted from the database. A PM logger would store them in a different table so that they would not get deleted when the member deletes them. Keith<{POST_SNAPBACK}> It's not because when I installed the mod I was able to see every PM I have sent since the board was setup (even the ones that were sent in phpbb before I converted over to IPS.). I can not see the problem if I want to monitor people on the site who have been causing trouble or look up PMs which people have complained about. It is also a good way to see if members are sending spam to your users through PMs. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Germany Posted November 27, 2004 Share Posted November 27, 2004 They aren't deleted. Nor are topics and users deleted, removed from the database. Go check it out yourself. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michael_C Posted November 27, 2004 Share Posted November 27, 2004 PMs are deleted when they are no longer needed, for example if User A sends a PM to User B and chooses to keep a copy in his sent items and User B deletes the message it will remain in the database because it is still in use by User A(in his/her sent items), if User A then deletes the message from his/her sent items it will then be removed from the database because it is no longer needed. Topics are also deleted from the database as are posts when they aren't needed any longer. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Germany Posted November 27, 2004 Share Posted November 27, 2004 No, really, they aren't. Go check your database. I still have every last PM and post in mine. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michael_C Posted November 27, 2004 Share Posted November 27, 2004 I tested my theory before I posted it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sire Posted December 10, 2004 Share Posted December 10, 2004 With 2.x, if someone is abusing the PM feature the members can just set the person on Ignore to block them. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
outlaw Posted December 10, 2004 Share Posted December 10, 2004 Thats the same with 1.3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Halcy0n Posted December 10, 2004 Share Posted December 10, 2004 They may be PM's/private messages, but, IT IS MY FORUM, and as the provider of the forum, I reserve the right to monitor all things that occur on my forum, INCLUDING private messages. If you don't like that, then you don't have to register and participate on my forums. If you want privacy then sorry a forum and PM's are not the correct place to communicate.<{POST_SNAPBACK}> Exactly. All these people just don't want to admit they have the PM mod installed and enjoy reading other people's PMs :-" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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