I personally believe all PMs should be logged, not only mass messages. I know this is a major invasion of privacy, which is something I don't generally advocate, but in this special case. If not local staff, then tenured global staff should be able to view the history between people in order to help solve disputes of claimed harassment.
Graal is the only online game I can think of that doesn't log messages sent through the game, and it is a security risk as a result. If you want to speak privately, use e-mail, AIM, MSN, Yahoo, MySpace, Facebook, Twitter, ICQ, etc. There are many ways to talk about private things that don't even need to be discussed on Graal, so use them.
Being able to view PMs can give us the following capabilities (and more):
- Solve complaints about stolen passwords being spread around, we could search for the account name being discussed in PMs and find the person(s) sending out the password.
- Handle cases of mass messages containing inappropriate things (pornography, passwords, illegal discussions), and have solid proof to back it up.
- Find discussion of anti-graal (spreading out links to trainers, people admitting to the use of such, etc).
- Find additional information on account scams, item scams, and allow us to make the communities a safer place with proper proof.
- Solve problems with extreme cases of harassment.
- Many more "special case" problems can also be solved.
I find myself commonly asking, "Do you have the PM history?", and "Do you have the RC history?" Someone should be able to look these things up to get solid evidence...