Membership Etiquette - what we expect and do not expect of each other

That would depend on whether we have a backup of the database from after the PM's arrival and prior to its deletion. We take daily backups, but if someone deletes a message immediately upon receiving it, there is no way we can retrieve it. Or, there is, but we are talking about costs in four-figure numbers or more.

The only person with theoretical access to the PMs, along with the rest of the database, is the server administrator, namely myself. The data exists somewhere, and therefore someone can access it. The only data no-one can access is the one you keep to yourself. That being clarified, I have enough professional dignity as a website and server administrator to not go dig into other people's private affairs. Though laws on the privacy of stored e-mail (to which I would equate PMs, though others may not agree) are currently shabby at best, peeking into others' correspondence is ethically questionable. If someone is concerned over the issue, I can draft together a privacy policy for this website.

Sometimes members may request me to retrieve messages or delete messages. I would like to note that this is possible through running certain database queries without coming in contact with the text content of the message itself (messages are easily identified and processed with timestamps and sender / receiver id:s), and this is how I handle database management related with private messages whenever (rarely) necessary.

In this vein, I would like to issue a word of caution to our members who may participate on other forums / websites, whose administrators may not be as ethically conscious as I am, and even run the forums for the sheer kicks of gossiping, being attention-whores, or in general annoying people. Please be aware that your privacy may be breached on websites where the administrator may not respect values of common ethics and decency.

In general, for information that you consider very sensitive, please use channels where privacy is explicitly protected by law, such as telephone, fax or postal letters. Currently, e-mail does not enjoy such protection, and for example your employer may very well get away with reading your e-mails stored on your work computer without any legal implications. For reference, you may read this article. For privacy with extremely sensitive e-mails, I recommend encrypting the message. That, however, is a whole another story and something I do not personally bother doing with my day-to-day e-mails.

I wanted to clarify the matter on access. By sending a PM in these forums, technically you are granting the administrator access to that by the act of storing it on the server. I wanted to clarify the difference between access and accessing. The administrator has access, but he will not be accesssing them unless there are reasonable grounds to suspect illegal activity or blatant abuse (such as flooding) of the server database.

Yes, that is very nicely clarified. Thanks.