Sticky Mail Type Communications

Can I monitor them for spammers?

[rover]

I have a forum that lets users send each other messages like the sticky mails at this forum.

Some are joining and abusing this to promote their products and basically spam the forum members. My question is whether it is o.k. for me to monitor the sticky mail type messages between members? Or how do other forums handle this?

[rogerd]

I've seen communities take different approaches to private message spam. Most, I'd say, just rely on their members to report solicitations, spam, etc.

One commercial community that I stop by periodically apparently looks at every message - I sent a PM to another member, and got a confirmation that it would be forwarded as soon as it had been checked. That's an extreme approach, to be sure, but apparently they have had major solicitation issues from service providers.

Personally, I'd rely on member reports. Perhaps do a public post asking for members to forward solicitations to you.