Banning Subscribed Users

Riamfada

Just a quick legality of banning suscribed users that popped into my mind.


I was recently banned in what I see as a mod "dubious" circumstances however while I object to the banning I accept it and this isnt what this is about. I , like many other users PAY to use boards through the subscription fee and to be banned "willy-nilly" by other users constitute a breech of contract if the banner is not able to fully stand by his/her bannage 100% or bans subscribers and does not ban non subscribers for simular posted material.

In short becuase of what I see as a questionable bannage i have paid for a week of boards.ie while I cannot post the my most posted forum?

Im well aware of forum rules but there must be some sort of appeals where a contract is entered into an legal rights are taken into account. Id even go as far as to say that my ban seems to be a breech of contract between myself and boards.ie

RuggieBear

view the subscription as more of a donation which does not entitle you to avoid bans.

Riamfada

does boards.ie view the transfer of money as a "donation" because i was under the impression i got an email address and avatar freedom and extended PM space.Surely a donation implies I got nothing in reurn for giving boards money? And im not saying immunity from being banned. I just mean a propper standardisation of bannage in one forum especially when I pay to use it (even if i dont have to)

biko

The way I see it is that you have forfeited the right to post on a particular forum, for a time, if you broke the charter. This is how it is today.
You still have access to boards.ie, which is the entity you subscribed to in the first place.

Site/perm-ban is a different kettle tho.

edit The charter can be considered binding, if you post you agree to the charter. If you break it, you agree that a ban is placed on you.

seamus

Take my comments here as an observer, and not as an Smod:

When you "subscribed", you didn't really enter into any legal contract. In essence, the subscription is a donation, since you provided money without actually asking for anything in particular in return. You're not actually "buying" anything.

Now, for the sake of argument, it's reasonable to assume that boards.ie has promised some services in light of your donation, most notably here:
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=311348

However, at no point in the entire transaction does boards.ie say (implied or otherwise) that becoming a subscriber entitles you to full unbridled access to all forums, and immunity (or a different procedure) from banning from a forum.

In other words, there is no contract which says you cannot be banned from a forum on boards.ie, or indeed from the entire site. Identically, there is no contract which says you have particular entitlements with regards to posting on boards.ie. If I'm mistaken, please show it to me.

stevenmu

They're really just thank you's for donating.

You could also view it that if you subscribed to get the email address and extra PM space, and you still have them then there's no breach on contract

Karoma

The custom avatar, extended PM space, etc. are a means of expressing gratitude for your donation. Did you sign a contract?


Wanna buy a Get Out Of Jail Free card?

Cake Fiend

Paying money doesn't entitle you to break the rules. If you need to dispute a ban, there should be no difference between how a subscriber appeals and how a non-subscriber appeals.

WhiteWashMan

Grimes wrote:

I was recently banned in what I see as a mod "dubious" circumstances however while I object to the banning I accept it and this isnt what this is about. I , like many other users PAY to use boards through the subscription fee and to be banned "willy-nilly" by other users constitute a breech of contract if the banner is not able to fully stand by his/her bannage 100% or bans subscribers and does not ban non subscribers for simular posted material.

In short becuase of what I see as a questionable bannage i have paid for a week of boards.ie while I cannot post the my most posted forum?

Im well aware of forum rules but there must be some sort of appeals where a contract is entered into an legal rights are taken into account. Id even go as far as to say that my ban seems to be a breech of contract between myself and boards.ie

well, you didnt enter a breech of contract, but if you did, i imagine the contract would read something like

'you should obey the rules of the forum, howver in the event of any dispute, the moderators decision is final'.

in which case, you have no case, and you just have to accept it like a grown up.

a subscriber and a mod, and youre here complaining about not being able to post for a week?
pretty poor if you ask me.


of course, all of this is just my own view, and not the opinion of boards.ie

Riamfada

wooo wooo cool the jets there WWM .


I accepted the ban, I was just highlighting an issue that popped into mind. Thanks for replying lads , thats all I wanted to know. Wasnt trying to start any trouble or anything , was just wondering how treatment of boards users would differ if the transfer of money was involved. And now I have my answer.

WhiteWashMan

sorry, take that 'youre' as a 'theyre'.

i think if that happened anyway, whoever had done it should probably get their money back and asked not to come back.

WizZard

WhiteWashMan wrote:

i think if that happened anyway, whoever had done it should probably get their money back and asked not to come back.

IIRC 'they' did. At least on one occasion for one notable user who has been back under a number of guises since.

DublinWriter

Grimes wrote:

In short becuase of what I see as a questionable bannage i have paid for a week of boards.ie while I cannot post the my most posted forum?

Small Claims Court!

Ah go on, I'll even defend you on a 'no foal no fee' basis. I have a wig 'n' all.

"M'Lud, in the case of Troll vs. Boards, I plea for the plaintif..."

garthv

You seem to be under the impression that subscribing to boards.ie entitles you to a month of viewing and posting pleasure.

This is not the case. As stated above, when you post in a forum you abide by the charter, not abiding by the charter is means for a ban. Therefore you are breaking whatever clause you seem to think is there and have no entitlement to a "refund"

Refund is in inverted commas is because you are not actually paying to use the site, you are donating to a group of guys to keep the site running, not to extend your posting priviliges.

Dyr

Much like a superhero with radiation I've been inadvertantely exposed to a number of courses on charity law etc in this country. Now while things arent as strict here as they are in the UK i gather that any entity that keeps accounts has to meet certain obligations when it comes to accepting "donations" etc. Even if a transaction is a donation and certain privileges/incentives are granted with it, then that entity needs to reasonably ensure that these are provided. From what i recall donation is not a term that should be thrown around lightly or thought of as having no strings attached. Accounting Ducks need to be lined up in rows in order to accept donations i think.

Hobbes

*meh*

Just reword the subscriber that it gives you a custom avatar and extended PM space. Don't have anywhere that it protects you from a ban or allows to post at all for that matter.

problem solved.

I wonder how SA do it? You have to pay to post there and you can get banned permantly on the first post and there have been some members who have rejoined 3-4 times and get banned each time.

Sizzler

Im binned from the after hours forum despite only posting on it once, no explanations ! If I made a mistake Im happy to take a hit but not even sure what I did wrong

Also it seems on some forums the mods are a tad over zealous and see it as a mission to quell opinions than to nurture them.

Peoples thoughts?

Mods can you bring me back into the game on after hours...or at least tell me why I was taken to the bruscar !

Ivan

Get your own thread, you crazy hijacker!
But seriously, try logging out and going to the After Hours forum and READING the charter. This, hopefully, should clear up any problems you might have. Otherwise, enjoy the vacation.

tba

The Subscriber deal is a contract, It provides the sub with a custom avatar and a new tagline. Even the blog is now available to all users so that is not applicable. As long as these two abilities are never removed from subscribers Boards.ie is not in breach of contract. It is also not required to extend the contract beyond the term payed for.

Therfore deleting a subscribers account or denying them access to change these two elements, should not be considered without getting the subscriber to accept a digital agreement at the time subscribing, or Boards.ie would be open to legal proceedings.

Makaveli

Grimes wrote:

I , like many other users PAY to use boards through the subscription fee

No you don't, you paid for the custom avatar, the e-mail address, the custom tagline and whatever other perks you got. You don't pay to use boards.

Beruthiel

I believe it was DeV who said that being a suscriber does not mean you won't get banned just like everyone else if you step out of line.

Talliesin

Actually, I can clearly remember DeV saying that the first time someone tried pointing to their subscription status in an argument about a banning we'd kick them of the site entirely and tell them to stuff their donation.

The subscription system was set up to solve the problem that some people wanted to help out boards financially and we didn't have a mechanism to allow for that, all the rest is frosting the cake.

hullaballoo

Ay am teh peh!

On a point of information, the ban was perfectly fair, which entirely moots the underlying reasoning in the OP's question. Even if it wasn't a fair ban, allowing subscribers any leniency above other users with regard to bans would be totally against what I see the boards ethos to be.

ferdi

personally i'd say the banning was dubious at best, Grimes was given no warning and while his post may have been cutting it a little fine, i think this is more a case of the mod cracking the whip.

and as a non subscriber, i'd have no issue with subscribers getting preferential treatment. seems only fair to be tbh.

WhiteWashMan

Sizzler wrote:

Im binned from the after hours forum despite only posting on it once, no explanations ! If I made a mistake Im happy to take a hit but not even sure what I did wrong

Also it seems on some forums the mods are a tad over zealous and see it as a mission to quell opinions than to nurture them.

Peoples thoughts?

Mods can you bring me back into the game on after hours...or at least tell me why I was taken to the bruscar !

dont know why you were banned, but you have access again.

and you posted on AH 3 times by the way, not once.

Gordon

WhiteWashMan wrote:

and you posted on AH 3 times by the way, not once.

4 actually.

Talliesin

ferdi wrote:

and as a non subscriber, i'd have no issue with subscribers getting preferential treatment. seems only fair to be tbh.

To a certain extent subscribers do get preferential treatment. If a bunch of people have issues that can be dealt with at mod or s-mod level and one of them is seen to contribute to boards in some way, guess who's issue I'll look into first - not as a concious decision, just because everyone who does something for boards does so in their free time because they like boards (or like something about it at least) and subconciously favour those who also contribute in some way.

However, when it comes to moderation; moderation is performed for the good of the forum, and someone being a subscriber does not affect whether their actions are damaging to the forum.

Ivan

With all due respect to the upstanding citizen that is Grime, when I read this thread I thought he got banned for his crap on this thread http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2054919653

All I can say is, you UCD crowd have no idea how easy ye get it.

If I was ruler of that... err, *ahem*... mod of that forum, I'd ban about 90% of ye.

And since when did people have to get a warning before being banned? As far as I'm concerned, reading the charter is your first warning and if you fail to read the charter... well then...

Riamfada

Jesus, Id like to thank alot of the UCD regular posters and I wanted to avoid this turning into a "Grimes Banned" thread which thanks to Hullaballoo it has become . I just wanted to know how the rules of boards related to subscribers and I have my answer.

1)1 Week Ban I dont care
2)No point in fighting it anyway
3)Whether I deserved it or not is a matter of ones own personal opinion
4)I was blatantly made an example of
5)One more time. I really dont care

DeVore

I dont even look at their status if I ban a user. If we banned someone who had paid a sub and they wanted it back, I'd give them the whole 50 if they we're really serious. 50 euro doesnt buy you the right to break the charters.

(thats a general comment, not a specific response to Grimes).

DeV.

WhiteWashMan

DeVore wrote:

I dont even look at their status if I ban a user..

thats actually quite true.
i think ive banned 3 mods in the past month from AH.

all of them deserved and uncontested as well i might add.

mods take banning better than users i find.
i may have to start doing some social experiments...