Delete old Private Messages

Just heart/chain/flag and banner, nothing else. It seems to be a design oversight of the forum software as i have never known a forum where you couldn’t delete private messages.

I don’t know… I wonder if there is a compatibility issue with certain web browsers causing the … (show more) to not display? Hopefully SZAdmin will have an answer when he logs on.

Same with firefox and internet explorer so i doubt it’s a compatibility issue.

After some thought about some recent private message harassment I’ve had to deal with, I don’t think it would be a good idea for people to be able to just delete private messages. Otherwise someone could send some nasty private messages and then delete them to avoid leaving any evidence.

I think maybe the software doesn’t allow deletion of old private messages because as Malvok mentioned - if there is a case of harassment of a person (or spamming of people via private messages - which we had in the last forum) the software developers didn’t want to have it that a person could delete the messages without a trace.

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so why does BarbieBF and Malvok have magic wands, and the SzAdmin have a trophy? does that mean you all have special secret powers?

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It’s not much of a secret.

(Steals your wand)
“Avada Kedavra!”
“MUAHAHAHAHA!”

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Malvok and I are moderators and SzAdmin is the main administrator.

No other forum i have been on in 17 years of using forums has felt the need to do this. Are we really saying that such bad things are going on behind the scenes that it is a necessity that Pms can’t be deleted? If so that doesn’t say much for these forums.
Why can’t the receiver of the harassing/spam message keep a copy which can be sent to admin/mods as proof in case of the harasser/spammer deleting his/her message, rather than having this no deletion of messages scenario ?

The developers of this forum software developed and ran StackExchange.com - the top Q&A platform on the web. Given their experience - this has been their approach (I believe). Part of the issue is the developers are in the USA - where legal issues are a much bigger source of employment than in other countries.

That said - your idea of “why can’t the receiver of the harassing/spam message keep a copy which can be sent to admins” - doesn’t work because anyone can type up a message and say its from another person on the forums and it would be impossible for anyone to confirm that is actually the case. If I write up a harassing message and say its from you - thats not going to be considered legal evidence.

In light of this ridiculous state of affairs is there a way to refuse messages(except from admin/mods)? Most software lets you opt out from all but admin/mod private messages.