Query about lost PMs

chiarieds

i've been looking back at my PMs, & I've lost many from [removed by moderator]. As he has always given me good advice & support these are a miss. There's one from January this year & again only one from April last year.

Now I know for a fact that we were sending each other PMs from Jan -April this year, so I'm wondering what's happened, & if anyone else has experienced anything similar?

My question to the Scope team would also be are PMs totally private as their name suggests? I can't see why they would be removed, & would like to know why, please? I'm hoping this is just a glitch, & would appreciate this looking into if this is the case.

Adrian_Scope

Hello @chiarieds. I've removed the name from your query as it's a full name rather than username (although I do appreciate there are similarities between the two). 

When an account is removed from the online community, I believe the associated private message conversations are automatically deleted as well. This isn't something we would manually action, but I will also say that this isn't something we have rigorously tested.
Do you recall if those conversations were initiated by you or by the other member?

chiarieds

Hi @Adrian_Scope - thank you for your prompt reply. Apologies, I just thought to mention the name to perhaps put it into context as the person is no longer a member.

Yes, I've just checked, & the 3 remaining lots of PMs were all started by myself (there was another in 2020).

What's strange then from what you say, is that the former member's account is still there yet all content removed from the forum. I'm very sorry indeed to see that this may include PMs, & I can't particularly see why.

Just to add, if messages initiated by myself remain, it seems nonsensical that those initiated by the other have disappeared......surely all or nothing? However, as they were not in the public forum, I can see no harm in them having remained IMHO.

Adrian_Scope

Hi again @chiarieds. This isn't a conscious choice on our part. When you delete a member's content, there is no option to include or exclude private message conversations. The system doesn't differentiate between different forms of content and simply removes everything associated with the account.

chiarieds said:

Yes, I've just checked, & the 3 remaining lots of PMs were all started by myself (there was another in 2020).

Just to clarify - does this mean that the conversations initiated by you remain intact and you can see both sides of the conversation or just your side? 

chiarieds

Hi @Adrian_Scope - yes the conversations all initiated by myself also contain all of said former member's replies.

poppy123456

I also had contact with Mike through PM, though it wasn't a lot before we exchanged emails and continued privately. When i first contacted Mike i beleive it was me that initiated the conversation but all my PM's have all be deleted.

chiarieds said:

My question to the Scope team would also be are PMs totally private as their name suggests?

I'm also interested to know the answer to this. I would like to think they are because after all they are called private messages and surely can't be read by the scope team? I'll be totally disgusted if they can be.

I'd also like to know why Mike's account is still visable, yet all content was removed.

woodbine

I will only say this once but I, like I suspect many others are getting fed up with all this bickering about Mike, from where I'm sitting he's gone and the forum hasn't collapsed, it has always been and always will be bigger than one person, people come and go and life goes on.
Thats my final word on this subject.

chiarieds

I fail to see how a genuine query is 'bickering' @woodbine - why would you say that? Adrian has kindly replied, & asked further questions to which I've then replied, so then why are you 'liking' Adrian's posts; he's just replying to my query? Not sure who the 'many others' might be.

poppy123456

I don't see "many others" getting fed up of these posts. I see nothing wrong at all with @chiarieds asking a genuine question.

Your signature says be extra nice to new members, shouldn't that say be nice to "all" members.

poppy123456

Woodburner said:

I’ve realised you can turn off signatures. 

Brilliant, thank you, i've just done that.

poppy123456

Woodburner said:

I put them off cos too much for my eyes. For a disability site there’s a lot of clutter. Also some signatures are long or silly. Like showing off. Surely you would just be nice to everyone and not need to say so?

Maybe you can help me? When you say PM is that the same as DM?

Yes, i agree with you. A PM (private message) I believe a DM is (direct message) but both the same thing.

Biblioklept

poppy123456 said:

I'm also interested to know the answer to this. I would like to think they are because after all they are called private messages and surely can't be read by the scope team? I'll be totally disgusted if they can be.

Nothing on the internet is private!! With risk of sounding like a conspiracy nut I don't get why people assume anything could be, most things online can be read by someone, emails, forums PMs, social media DMs, group chats and everything can all be read by site owners if they wanted. But just because they can doesn't mean they do or they will.

The only way to ensure privacy is if they're encrypted but I don't know any forum that has that and most social media doesn't, I guess the people at twitter could sit and read through your DMs if they wanted. Most emails don't either, like gmail and outlook but outlook does have option to encrypt. There are emails that are better like protonmail. And Whatsapp offers end to end encryption as standard so if you're worried about privacy of messages they're good but there are other security concerns with them, FB messenger has an option to encrypt messages too but Facebook isn't where you'd go if privacy concerns you   

Biblioklept

Woodburner said:

Also some signatures are long or silly. Like showing off. Surely you would just be nice to everyone and not need to say so?

Pretty rude picking on someone's signature and calling them silly and showing off, who takes issue with someone saying to be nice?

Adrian_Scope

poppy123456 said:

I'm also interested to know the answer to this. I would like to think they are because after all they are called private messages and surely can't be read by the scope team? I'll be totally disgusted if they can be.

I'd also like to know why Mike's account is still visable, yet all content was removed.

Like most platforms, there is technically the ability for administrators to read private messages, but there is a difference between being able to do something and actually doing it. Ethical considerations aside, it is not something that could or would be done lightly - and I would imagine only in the case of extremely significant concerns.

With regard to your other question, we are unable to discuss the status of another person's account and it would not be appropriate for us to do so. If any member has questions about their own account they are welcome to email the team.

chiarieds

Thank you for the explanation @Adrian_Scope - I presumed you would respect our privacy as far as PMs go, but it's always good to understand more.

woodbine

poppy123456 said:

I don't see "many others" getting fed up of these posts. I see nothing wrong at all with @chiarieds asking a genuine question.

Your signature says be extra nice to new members, shouldn't that say be nice to "all" members.

I did say I had my final word on this subject, I would have thought it common courtesy for us to be as nice as possible to all members, my signature just suggest we all be extra nice to new members, by making them feel welcome, I see NO issue with that, it does sadden me to see an A.I spring up, not something thankfully see too often on here.

Now I really have had my final say on this pointless succession of threads on basically the same subject.

poppy123456

This is the first thread I’ve seen asking about missing PMs so I’m not sure what you mean about “succession of threads on the same subject “ 

chiarieds

This post was just about missing PMs, & you went off topic @woodbine - unless you had missing PMs, you really had no need to comment. All you did was unnecessarily continue to show your dislike of a former member rather than being, 'as nice as possible to all members.' Passive aggression springs to mind (also with you 'liking' Adrian's replies).