Hi everyone, I've just taken over as admin for a forum using UBB7.3 in which I have no experience (I've used SMF before). The forum is a bit of a mess and there's some gnarly users there. I'm going to update but need to get some pressing issues sorted first as well as some of the members.

I've searched through the forums here for some questions I have but have boiled it down to these three. I'd appreciate if someone can help.

1. Is there a function to read other's PM's? I suspect that there is a small hard core co-ordinating on messing things up and I'd like to check on those members I suspect.

2. Can I also delete other's messages if I want?

3. How do I disable and enable PM's for different users?

Thanks very much, TM

1) No
2) No
3) You will need to create a special group for those users and disable PM's for that group and place those users in that group.

The only way to read PM's other then becoming that member is to use something like PHPMyAdmin and crawl the data base manually. This takes lots of skill to figure out who is talking to who and follow the discussion as everything is based on member number and you can not read it like a regular PM.

Thanks JAISP (although that will make my job more difficult).

How about enabling? Is that done through PHPMyAdmin too? I have a couple of users say their PM's were banned by the last admin and I'm trying to give them access again. They also said their messages were deleted, although that seems odd given the answers above.

The previous admin is no help. He's either had a nervous breakdown or gone off to drink heavily. I'm thinking already I may do the same soon.

Thanks, TM

Enabling/disabling is done through the Site Permissions area in the control panel. If PMs are enabled for a user then they are probably in a group where the "Total # of Private Topics" is set to 0 or -1 for that group.

So what you can do is check what groups they are in and then check the permissions for that group, and then just put the user back into the standard group that has the permission disabled.

As for viewing/deleting private topics, it can be done via SQL commands or through PHPMMyAdmin but it's usually considered bad form to do so.

Okay great Rick, thanks very much. I'll go have a look now.

I know deleting is morally ambiguous. Just not sure how I'm gonna clean the mess up otherwise. I want to ban a very small number of nuisance members but would like a little evidence to justify that. Maybe I'm just being overly-suspicious (or paranoid). I'm thinking of banning pm's for a month to see if that helps.

I have a rule on my board that states, "Beagle World reserves the right to monitor ALL areas on our servers and equipment for adherence to these Rules or other rules that may be published from time to time."

That includes PM's by the way.

Yes Rick it was bad for me to monitor my boards PM's while the "staff" were plotting to take over the place and steal my email database in order to populate their newly registered domain and message board to close my board, LOL.

Good point JAISP. I might go double check the rules currently in place and quite possibly update them. Wait a few days to see what happens.

I've got the pm's back on for those that asked. No sight, that I can see anyway, of their deleted pm's.

When I said it was usually considered bad form, that wasn't meant to be a sweeping condemnation on anyone. If it's in your rules then that's great, your users are fully aware of it. I just know some sites that have no rules, no privacy statements, nothing whatsoever and admins gleefully read other people's PMs just for the fun of it.