[@mugwumpman Participant 10 years, 11 months ago]

If I run the following MySQL query…

SELECT * FROM wp_posts WHERE post_type LIKE 'forum'

…I notice that post_status = ‘private’ for the private forums. That makes sense.
However, if I run…

SELECT * FROM wp_posts WHERE post_type LIKE 'topic'

…I notice that all the topics have post_status = ‘publish’ whether they are in a private forum or not.

Is there any reason why they aren’t post_status = ‘private’? Might that be why the archive lists them?