Managing Users Who Ask To Leave

[Steve Freides]

I've had a first for me - a user has asked me to delete him from our board.

I have several questions about managing this. Currently, I allow users to delete their own posts - but I now realize that if I allow a user to delete their own posts, they could disrupt the flow of threads in which they participated, and I don't want to allow that.

I would appreciate a list of suggestions of things in the ACP I might change while still allowing, e.g., a user who posts something they decide they're rather they hadn't to delete an individual post like that.

All ideas, ACP suggestions, policies, etc. - please let me know. I've been a forum admin for about six months and this is something I hadn't anticipated.

Thanks very much.

-S-

 

[teletubbi]

Just from my experience.
Let them delete their own post is not a good idea.
Deleting should only be in the hands of the team.
Even hard delete is not possible for our moderators.

Have some points why.
First you mentioned already. Can destroy a thread totally. So think about the scenario when you get in trouble with a user. He can harm a lot to your content.

Second one is think about someone post something to offend other users or something against law. After he delete there is no prove anymore that he post it.

There are some other legal reasons to consider.

In our board people can't even delete pictures they have uploaded.

Because we had one case where a user delete all of them and makes threads useless. Another case was someone, who want harm us upload pictures that can bring a forum down or at least bring a lot of trouble.

So at the point of registration they accept that they give us the right about to use their content and deleting is up to us. This don't affect their copyright. This is still with them.

If someone has a good reason that he want delete something (post, picture or thread) we will do it.
But never hard delete. Only put it in a section which can't be seen by public.

Sometimes they change their mind so it is easy to bring it up again.

 

[Lawrence]

My policy: I have no problem deleting a new member upon request as they would have very little interaction. For members that have been around, it's my discretion for reasons @teletubbi pointed out. This policy is in my forum rules section that all potential new members are required to read before joining.

 

[Steve Freides]

Thanks to everyone for their replies. I have made the following changes in ACP -> Users -> Registered -> Group Permissions

These are my current settings:

Delete Post by Self: Not Set (No)

Edit Post by Self: Allow

Time Limit on Edit/Deleting Own Posts: 30 minutes

Delete Thread by Self: Not Set (No)

Please tell me if there's more you think I should change.

-S-

 

[wedgar]

Edit Post by Self: Allow

Could they effectively delete the post by editing all of the text from the original post?

 

[Steve Freides]

Edit Post by Self: Allow

Time Limit on Edit/Deleting Own Posts: 30 minutes

This seemed like a reasonable compromise to me, and is the way another XF board I'm a member of handles it - basically, you can edit something you spot right after you post but that's it.

-S-

 

[teletubbi]

Could they effectively delete

You can but with the history function it is always possible to bring back the original content.

 

[Steve Freides]

The business of

at the point of registration they accept that they give us the right about to use their content and deleting is up to us. This don't affect their copyright. This is still with them.

Would someone be kind enough post their verbiage about this from their forum rules, please? (or post a link to it on your board).

-S-

 

[teletubbi]

It is in German language.
So it might not help you.

 

[Steve Freides]

I have friends and colleagues who spreche Deutsch - I can ask for their help. I took German I in college so I'll certainly understand some of it.

-S-

 

[teletubbi]

This is the part in our terms I was speaking about.

Wir behalten uns das Recht vor, jeglichen Beitrag, ohne Angabe von Gründen, zu bearbeiten oder zu löschen. Es liegt in unserer Entscheidung, ob wir Bitten um die Bearbeitung oder Löschung von Beiträgen nachkommen. Wir behalten uns ebenfalls das Recht vor, Maßnahmen gegen Benutzerkonten durchzuführen.

Du erteilst uns ein nicht exklusives, permanentes, unwiderrufliches, und unbegrenztes Nutzungsrecht für die Inhalte, die du im Zusammenhang mit dieser Seite erstellen wirst oder erstellt hast. Dies beinhaltet sowohl die Veröffentlichung als auch eine Neu-Veröffentlichung. Du behältst das vollständige Copyright an deinen Inhalten.

Full text you can find here:

http://www.pattayaforum.net/forums/help/terms

 

[Steve Freides]

Courtesy of Google Translate:

We reserve the right to any contributions to work without giving a reason , or delete . It is our decision whether to comply with requests for editing or deletion of posts. We also reserve the right to carry out actions against user accounts .

You grant us a non-exclusive , permanent , irrevocable and unlimited right to use the content that you create in the context of this page or will have created . This includes the publication as well as a re- publication . You retain complete copyright of your content .

That's very good - it's only the first sentence that needs to be in more idiomatic English.

Does this board we're on now have Rules posted somewhere?

-S-

 

[Steve Freides]

Ah, here:

https://xenforo.com/community/help/terms

-S-

 

[Steve Freides]

Google Translate does a pretty good job on your German text. I got

We reserve the right to any contributions to work without giving a reason , or delete . It is our decision whether to comply with requests for editing or deletion of posts. We also reserve the right to carry out actions against user accounts .

You grant us a non-exclusive , permanent , irrevocable and unlimited right to use the content that you create in the context of this page or will have created . This includes the publication as well as a re- publication . You retain complete copyright of your content .

 

[Anthony Parsons]

You retain complete copyright of your content .

Our solicitor wrote us:

By uploading materials to any Forum or submitting any materials to Us, you automatically:

1. grant (or warrant that the owner of such rights has expressly granted) Us a perpetual, royalty-free, irrevocable, non-exclusive right and license to use, reproduce, modify, adapt, publish, translate, create derivative works from, disclose, post, remove and/or distribute such materials or incorporate such materials into any form, medium, or technology now known or later developed throughout the universe;
2. warrant that all so-called "moral rights" in those materials have been waived; and
3. warrant to Us that all such content complies in all ways with the provisions of these terms of use.

We don't allow deletion of any content, and our users have a 60 minute edit window. With a quite busy forum, we've rarely had a member delete their content in that time window. Maybe a few times a year from what is a busy site.

 

[Steve Freides]

@Anthony Parsons, that's some interesting wording you have there. I'm guessing, by your use of the word "solicitor," that you're in the UK or perhaps Australia or New Zealand. Although a quick look online says there is such a thing here in the US, it's quite unusual to hear the word here.

In your #1, "throughout the universe" - my, that really does cover the location issue!

In your #2, I have no idea what is meant or implied by "moral rights" - could you explain?

What I did yesterday was up the time limit to 300 minutes. I think this will allow my users to edit without allowing them to get rid of anything other than what they've posted in the current day, and this seems a reasonable compromise to me.

-S-

 

[Anthony Parsons]

In your #2, I have no idea what is meant or implied by "moral rights" - could you explain?

http://copyright.com.au/about-copyright/moral-rights/

Basically if you reuse the content you are therefor licensed, you do not need worry about attributing every reuse to the author, i.e. pushing your content through a social feed, that feed may not use the original authors name, and may in fact use your name, or the account name you created a social feed with.

Having a license to use posted content, in fact, you are liable for damages in using their content if you did not attribute such rights under their moral rights for copyright ownership. If they have copyright, then you must have moral rights waived to reuse their content without attributing every portion of that content to them.

It makes it very hard to achieve moral rights the way social network feeds work when using user generated content to obtain further users from your social networks.

Yes, solicitor equals lawyer. That is my understanding of it from their explaining it to me.

There is an inherit issue in running any online community today, and that is that people actually believe you only need meet laws of their country. Well... yes, that is accurate IF you impose limits such as country blocks for anyone outside of your country, however, if you do not impose such blocks, and you actively engage users from other countries, you must actually meet certain laws for each and every country. The EU cookie aspect is one such topic to use as an example, it is easier to comply than not.

I'm not a lawyer, but I am curious and do ask mine a lot of questions. People aren't as protected globally as they think when running a website.

 

[Steve Freides]

@Anthony Parsons, you make an interesting point. Our forum does have users from around the world, including Australia, and if I understand you correctly, you're suggesting that we could be liable for violating the "moral rights" of an AU user if we don't specifically ask them to waive those rights as you have done.

-S-

 

[Anthony Parsons]

Correct. Every user has legal rights, rights are not assumed based on the owners location like many think they are. Your lawyer has to look at the rights people have across the broad spectrum. Most are similar, the same... but there are some subtleties within each country that can really undo a forum owner online.

If you posted content to social networks without the posters attribution, they have a legal right to compensation, especially if that content helps you earn money, for example.

Some of the best legal policies to get understanding from are Facebook, Twitter, so forth, who serve across the globe as they have clauses meeting specific country needs.

Lets be realistic... unless someone was making serious money from their posted work and your publishing that onto social profiles without attribution was an issue for them, then it would not likely matter. BUT... there is a but in there, and if someone suddenly got rich from something, they have legal claim against everything beyond your site you have done with their content.

I actually just had a specific case where a lady wanted to take legal action because she posted lyrics she wrote onto my site. My site actually obtains the copyright at posting, the licensing terms are purely fall-back if the copyright term doesn't hold within a specific legal case, i.e. anyone under 18 cannot legally consent to a binding contract. In such case, the licensing clause holds up still. So, she wanted to sue for copyright ownership. Long story short, her legal advice obviously went along the lines of, tough sh*t... she agreed to the legal terms upon posting. Because she was literally so nasty about the entire thing, I refused to provide them to her. She has the chance to make money from them, apparently.

In such a case, if I only had the licensing terms and she suddenly was making money from these lyrics she originally wrote and posted onto my site, I would currently be removing all and any replications from social profiles I send content to otherwise I would be infringing her copyright without her having waived her moral rights as well, for such additional use of the content.

 

[Robust]

I'd delete the user because that's their right. Not their posts, just the account if requested