When I send a question "privately," how private is it? Can administrators or anyone behind the scenes read the message?

Mahalo staff can read if they wish any question we ask. It does not mean they will read our private questions and answers but we have to take that on faith and principle that they will not unless necessary. I have asked Mahalo staff to read private direct questions and private direct answers that I have either asked or given and they have been able to without anything more than permission from me.In situations of spam or harassment or TOS violations they can use the "Sheriff Powers" The "private" distinction does actually prevent another unauthorized Mahalo user from reading the questions and answers with that distinction but to Mahalo staff the "private" distinction on a question or answer is merely a sign on the door saying so.. if Mahalo staff needs to they can read it.

I think that a good general rule is that once you put something on the Internet, especially on a website open to anyone, you should have no expectation that it will stay 100% private. That's not to say that it will intentionally be compromised. Companies take great measures to keep their information private.

But it's called World Wide Web--once it gets on the www, anyone in the world has potential to see it. For an example of how things on the Internet can get around, I refer you to the recent leak of thousands of pages of classified information that recently appeared on the open website wikileaks.com. Once again, anyone in the world, including enemies has potential to see it now that it's online: "25th July 2010 5:00 PM EST WikiLeaks has released a document set called the Afghan War Diary, an extraordinary compendium of over 91,000 reports covering the war in Afghanistan from 2004 to 2010.

The reports, while written by soldiers and intelligence officers, and mainly describing lethal military actions involving the United States military, also include intelligence information, reports of meetings with political figures, and related details.

I cant really gove you an answer,but what I can give you is a way to a solution, that is you have to find the anglde that you relate to or peaks your interest. A good paper is one that people get drawn into because it reaches them ln some way.As for me WW11 to me, I think of the holocaust and the effect it had on the survivors, their families and those who stood by and did nothing until it was too late.