PMs and Damage Control

[Gorgrael]

Ok, the scenario is this; our forum rules state the following:

All images posted within the ***** Forums remain the property of the owners of the images. All other content posted within the ****** Forums remains the intellectual property of the owners. Please respect this and do not steal or plagiarise any content from here. If you would like a copy of an image please contact the owner privately to request permission.

We had a need to investigate an issue in private messages this week and as a result a user was banned. Before this person was banned they sent PMs and emails to all and sundry telling them that admins were reading their PMs.
Now we have users asking is this true and accusing us of ethical misbehaviour etc etc.

We have devised a new rule to include that divulges the fact that all PMs
belong to the forum owners and can be read, edited etc but don't want to be seen to be going into damage control and there is mixed feelings about posting it now versus in a week or so.

What is everyone's experience in this regard and if no experience, what is your opinion on giving a banned user the satisfaction of seeing a knee jerk reaction?

[Bober42]

Personally I dont like that hack as it can be abused by admin and should only ever be used in certain circumstances.

Users prefer things when your honest so in your case I would post the following-

Dear Forum,

As you may be aware a user has been banned this week for abusing the pm system.

The pm system is a privilege, not all forums allow it, but if used in the correct manner and you follow the forum rules in your private messages, your messages will remain totally private to all but the intended.

In extreme cases i.e racist remarks, liable comments, forum rule braking etc, your private message may be investigated for obvious reasons. This is something we dont like doing and wastes admin time having to search the database.

Follow the forum rules in your pm's and they will remain private.

Admin.

This came up on our forum last year and the above cured the the moaners.

Good luck man as it can be a can of worms

[Floris]

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