PM's

sugarless sue · Oct 9, 2008

Sue - can I ask whether PMs are moderated?

Thanks!

LadyJ

Does that answer your question?
You may,as an IT person be able to access databases,I wouldn't know either where it was or where to start! No mods on here have admin rights ,only mod rights and ,as I am sick of saying that does not allow access to PM's.Indeed the access for mods on this sort of forum is very limited compared to other forums.
The fact that,with your knowledge of this type of board you completely refuted all that I was saying essentially makes me look a liar to the membership.
I have asked Admin to issue an offical statement about this situation and I hope that when that happens it will be the end of this .
I feel that there are underlying issues here but I will not voice them on the public board.

sugarless sue · Oct 9, 2008

Until such time as Admin replies to this I am locking this thread.

Administrator · Oct 10, 2008

Ahem,

Having floated this question before phpbb forum uber-geeks, we have been given the following response. Please bear in mind, this is from someone that eats, sleeps and breathes PHP and knows the software inside out.

There is no function in phpBB3 which will allow Admin or mods to access other members pm messages (not without a mod) as such there is no way for an Admin or moderator to read or cancel a pm for another user without directly messing in the database. Users how ever can send a pm and then delete it before the pm has been read giving a message saying the message has been deleted. It sounds to me more like you have user sending pm's and then deleting them from their outbox before it has been read by the recipient

I suggest what has happened in all these instances, is that the individuals have deleted the private message from their outbox before it has been read?

There is nothing sinister going on here people. This is a free, independent forum with no sponsors. It is built for the diabetic community, to give them a place to meet and share ideas, help each other and perhaps (shockingly) have a laugh. It has helped thousands of people, and will help thousands more. This is the spirit under which it was started, and how it will continue.

sugarless sue · Oct 10, 2008

Thank you Dan,I hope this will now end any misconceptions amongst certain members.this thread is now open for further comment .

LadyJ · Oct 10, 2008

SarahQ said:
fasteddie said:

To anyone this may concern

If Sue tells me she cannot read private messages then I believe her TOTALY. Sue puts more time into this forum than anyone else. Does any moron think a person that gives countless hours of her time to help people less fortunate than herself would lie ? we live in a jaundiced world at times but there are people out there with integrity, Sue is one of them.

Eddie

Click to expand...

I agree 100% and pm'd Sue with my support a few hours ago.

I'm not entirely sure why anyone jumped to the assumption that Sue personally was being attacked. I also wrote to her personally and assured her that this had not been my intention. Therefore, the playground taunts of "moron" are entirely misplaced and uncessary. I specifically wrote (as have the others who were concerned, I think) that I believe Sue and did not doubt her integrity as an individual.

She was asked a question in her capacity as a moderator.

For goodness sake, if someone is worried about their personal messages, are they not entitled to ask a question around here?

LadyJ · Oct 10, 2008

The fact that,with your knowledge of this type of board you completely refuted all that I was saying essentially makes me look a liar to the membership.

This in particular (which was addressed specifically to me) was particularly unfair as I had posted twice since my initial quesiton, the second time to say specifically that I believed you and wasn't accusing you of anything.

I asked an open and honest question and yet you are making me out to be unreasonable or that I have personally attacked you.

Completeley uncessary in all the circumstances.

sugarless sue · Oct 10, 2008

Thank you LJ. I would ask the members to please not post any more replies flaming posters on this thread.I think the question has now been answered by both myself and Admin. and should now be put to rest.

LJ the quote above is from Barcodius's post ,why do you think it was aimed at you?

sugarless sue · Oct 10, 2008

I have revisited that particular post LJ.I quoted you in answer to his question.The post was to Barcodius and in no way was aimed at you.If you re-read it you will see what I mean.

Administrator · Oct 10, 2008

I'd be interested in hearing a response from Barcodius regarding this? Does he agree?

Barcodius · Oct 10, 2008

I have a suggestion. What I would do in this situation is post one combined clear statement which includes:

1) An assurance that no such modification has been made to the forum software which gives access to PMs
2) That the policy of the forum is not to read or tamper with PMs except under the following conditions..... (include things like investigation of harassment reports, court orders)
3) That no tampering has taken place regarding these PMs in particular or any in the past.

I realise that you have done most of the above before, but this has been spread out and originally this included a statement that it was not possible. As the "user-geeks" have confirmed, it is possible through either direct database access or through a packaged mod of the forum software or some other change.

A combined statement all in one place and covering all of the above should put all fears to rest and put the matter to bed nicely.

I think I have resolved other outstanding issues with other posters - as far as is going to happen it seems - through PMs. Thankfully there were no problems with those particular PMs getting through.

It would be useful to know the cause of the problem though. If there is a bug in phpbb then it would be good to make the rest of the phpbb community aware of it and have the issue fixed. Alternatively to confirm that a bug does exist. Do Sue and Tigerlily recall if they deleted the PMs from their outboxes?

sugarless sue · Oct 10, 2008

I definitely did not delete from my outbox.The posts appeared in my inbox as already deleted.

Barcodius · Oct 10, 2008

Sorry Sue, I misunderstood. I thought the missing PMs in your case were ones you had sent. So perhaps the senders of those PMs can be asked if they deleted these particular PMs from their outboxes?

sugarless sue · Oct 10, 2008

Probably except I don't remember who they were!I get a lot of PM's!!

fergus · Oct 10, 2008

Everyone, I had no idea that this firestorm was raging here. Too busy trying to assist struggling diabetics with real problems perhaps?
As a fellow moderator, I feel I should add my complete and utter support of Sue's exemplary effort, hard work and absolute integrity on the forum.
I'm the most recent addition to the list of moderators and still at the precipitously slippy end of the learning curve. I'm certain that there are many members with a much more complete understanding of the nuts and bolts than I have and find it difficult to understand why anyone would have an interest in interfering with the PM system. Perhaps I'm simply a naive technological illiterate but I'm not convinced there's a genuine privacy issue here at all.
For my own part I have deleted a couple of PM's from my own outbox in the past because they had failed to be sent successfully and had stayed stuck there instead. That's it.
It think this whole thread is rather Kafkaesque quite frankly.

All the best,

fergus

Tiger Lily · Oct 10, 2008

sugarless sue said:
I definitely did not delete from my outbox.The posts appeared in my inbox as already deleted.

i definitely did not delete my PM to Trink
btw, i have known Trink for YEARS now, and that's why i PM'd him!

i'm still waiting to hear from Eddie who is my alter ego?

manofkent99 · Oct 10, 2008

Has anyone ever thought about looking in at the new chat room?

sugarless sue · Oct 10, 2008

I can't keep up either!

sugarless sue · Oct 10, 2008

Being cak- handed probably doesn't help either. :lol: :lol:

Administrator · Oct 13, 2008

From our brilliant Php experts:

There is no built in default option for admins, moderators, users, guests or bots to read other peoples PMs.

You can send a PM and then cancel it. You get a deleted PM message though.

One thing that trips a lot of people up is that when you compose a brand new message (not clicking the PM button in a post), you must type in the username of the recipient and then click ADD. If you don't it doesn't get sent and you should see a message saying 'No recipient defined'.

The senders can also check their outbox and sentbox. It will sit in the outbox until the recipient reads it then it moves to the sentbox.

You might like to point out to a certain user, who threw a cat amongst the pidgeons there, that if you had read PMs in the database, they WOULDN'T have been marked as read, unless you had decided to mark them as read, because that is the level of access that reading anything in the database gives you.

We do not, have not, and will not read, edit or touch your private messages - ever.

sugarless sue · Oct 13, 2008

Thank you ,Admin,that is the definitive answer to the question and I hope that this subject is now well and truly put to bed and we can move on.

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