Are private messages confidential to the sender/recipient

[sandybay]

As a bit of a luddite not sure how these sites work technically.

If two [or more] members private message each other can those messages be accessed by the site administator or web master ?

Not sure what happens on RM ?

[Oola]

As far as my admin control panel, no I can't see private messages there. I can delete private messages as in the case of Stephanie, but it's a blanket delete - the option is 'delete private messages from user' and all the messages disappear. I can send private messages to one member or all members of the forum, send out admin emails etc but can't access private messages there.

I asked Rich and he said that there are ways to access private messages through the 'back end' of the database, but I don't use that area. It's something to do with PHP, scripts etc and I think I'm right in saying that there are links to server stuff there, but I coud be wrong. All chat forums have this 'back end' access. I can backup the forum and manage RM from the admin control panel, which is quite user friendly, so as far as I know have no reason to even access that database. So in theory yes I could, but in practise obviously no I don't. So in essence yes the messages are private.