Terms and Rules Update

[Dean C]

If the forum is not open to public view but only to registered members as in a Club - does this make a difference?
Essentially my members are only communicating with each other, not publishing to public view.
Nor is there any open registration. Anyone wanting to join is either invited by me or contacts me to ask.

You still host the content. The probability of some illegal or defaming content coming into the public domain is therefore lower, but some courts will (wrongly) still deem you responsible for the content. Hopefully the, German courts inparticular, will see sense in the coming years.

 

[erich37]

- where within the T&C does it say that a user has no rights of his content to be removed from the website, when a user decides he wants to get his account deleted ?
- where does it say within the T&C that if a user requests to get his username deleted and to terminate his account from the website, that his content will still stay on the website ?

is this sufficiently covered in the T&C ?

 

[ibaker]

The new rules are saying that they will NOT remove your content if you ask for it to be removed or if you ask for your account to be removed they still will NOT remove the content you have posted...

This opens up the argument now for any and every XF licence holder to cancel their license and receive a full refund as when you purchased a license you actually purchased a "package" inclusive of your license is support which also includes the support in these forums as well (inc access to license holder only forums) which were governed by the terms and conditions that were applicable at the time of purchase and for a period of 12 months there after. Once the 12 months is up then you will not be able to as you are renewing your services under different terms and conditions. These new terms and conditions now have a "These terms may be changed at any time without notice." clause which covers XF from then on unlike for those whose license has not elapsed as yet.

A user can simply edit their posts and replace the text with just something like "Post Removed", which I may add will make the XF forums look very stupid when it is done, however what the problem then is, is the quoted posts that may contain content that the user wanted to remove in the first place...and XF won't remove your content from them.

It would have been so much easier for XF, and to keep the forums looking good to their customers and potential new customers, to just remove a user's posts/account if they requested it...much more friendly to the customers and more appreciated as well I would guess

 

[Morgain]

I think this needs at least a sentence added to say that-

If a member discovers they are in difficulties, legal, personal, or otherwise, due to their content contributed to the site as a member, they should notify the site administrators. The administrators will attempt to find a reasonable solution, up to and including removal of the problematic content. However the ultimate responsibility for contributing content rests with its author and the site administration cannot guarantee its removal on request.

I have a broadly similar text in my business contract. My clients know that we are normally sympathetic and reasonable about t6heir difficulties so this is adequate to the issue.
Ultimately it's about a degree of trust anyway, because undertakings in rules can always be twisted and avoided by those who are not trustworthy. It's the people who run the project who matter, more than the written undertaking.

 

[mrGTB]

It would have been so much easier for XF, and to keep the forums looking good to their customers and potential new customers, to just remove a user's posts/account if they requested it...much more friendly to the customers and more appreciated as well I would guess

I don't think your being realistic here though, try and imagine a person who has 350,000 posts on your forum, then one day they request all be removed. The kind of damage that does to threads they've posted in, tips they may have posted helping others lost for good e.t.c. It's a nightmare happening on any forum board, not just here. I came across a thread yesterday with another person posting code on: "How to add a TAB", in that thread Floris posted he'd turned the code into a plug-in, also posting a link leading to another new thread he started advertising it for download. But the plug-in itself is now gone from that thread he linked to in another thread. It just makes a mess of everything and you'll get some people who'll ask to have all their posts removed at the drop of a whim. They wake-up in a bad mood one and day

I've seen it happen, even with one of my own forum boards run many years ago after a person kept posting some rubbish I was replying back to at times. Then one day, I was asked to remove all their posts because they didn't like what they'd posted (suddenly anymore). I said no, and for the same reasons. Some people will even do it on purpose, posting with the intention of disrupting your community by asking it all be removed later.

 

[erich37]

- where within the T&C does it say that a user has no rights of his content to be removed from the website, when a user decides he wants to get his account deleted ?
- where does it say within the T&C that if a user requests to get his username deleted and to terminate his account from the website, that his content will still stay on the website ?

is this sufficiently covered in the T&C ?

I am actually not talking about Xenforo.com website, but how to word the T&C for my own forum in order not to be required to remove content of a certain user when this certain user wants his account and content to be deleted.

I am asking if the text of the T&C here at XF will cover this issue (not for XF.com, but I would need this for my own website).
Any lawyers here who can advise on this?

Thanks!

 

[yoghurtfarmer]

I noticed my Terms and Rules were the old version, which makes me think that the master value for Phrases aren't updated with each version upgrade?

 

[Equiline]

Yes I noticed that as well yoghurtfarmer