forum terms and conditions

evilhomer

i have a friend who has set up a forum on his website and someone is after posting derogatory remarks about a person who has now read the forum and is very upset about it. Said they would go to the Garda about it apparently!

Is there a good generic terms and conditions / disclaimer, he could use on his site to stop legal problems arrising from a remark someone else made?

obviously this terms and conditions would be of no use to him in his current situation, but perhaps help avoid future situations.

Sposs

Just state that remarks made on the forum has nothing to do with the owners of said forum and that you are not liable for any remarks made by users.
Delete the remarks and that should be enough.

mneylon

The disclaimer may not hold that much weight if it came to a legal issue.
In the first instance the owner of the domain/site could be held responsible if the comments were in a public forum. In the second instance the aggrieved party could take issue with the hosting provider.
You can word your disclaimers as strongly as you like, but you would really need to get legal advice if you wanted to avoid any conflicts comfortably.

dead air

What forum software is used? Usually those generic type disclaimers are already present on the board and users have to agree to them before they sign up. For example, this is the disclaimer on invision boards...

Please remember that we are not responsible for any messages posted. We do not vouch for or warrant the accuracy, completeness or usefulness of any message, and are not responsible for the contents of any message. The messages express the views of the author of the message, not necessarily the views of this BB. Any user who feels that a posted message is objectionable is encouraged to contact us immediately by email. We have the ability to remove objectionable messages and we will make every effort to do so, within a reasonable time frame, if we determine that removal is necessary. You agree, through your use of this service, that you will not use this BB to post any material which is knowingly false and/or defamatory, inaccurate, abusive, vulgar, hateful, harassing, obscene, profane, sexually oriented, threatening, invasive of a person's privacy, or otherwise violative of any law. You agree not to post any copyrighted material unless the copyright is owned by you or by this BB.

dahamsta

evilhomer wrote:

Said they would go to the Garda about it apparently!

Most veteran forum operators either laugh at or simply 12-click people that make threats like this, even if they're right, simply because it's the height of ignorance to row in with threats against a site operator because of the behaviour of a poster. But it still happens: I'm guaranteed two a year on Foot.ie, and I often get a hell of a lot more. There's also the solicitor threat, which I've yet to have a follow-up on.

I tend to think that deleting a post without serious consideration is generally a bad idea, even if the post is in fact wildly derogatory, because you risk being accused of being a publisher at a later stage, and litigated against as a result. Kind of a personal preference of mine to be summoned to give evidence rather than charged, but your friend might be kinky that way.

The first step I usually take is to inform the complainant clearly and concisely that since posts are fully the responsibility of the poster, they should contact the poster themselves or through me to ask them to delete or edit the posts themselves. Failing that, I've taken to threatening the poster with the usual crap - bans, suspensions, deletion, etc - and finally to give up their IP address and registration details without protest if presented with a court order.

It's never gone further than that for me, but if it does for your friend - i.e. if the complainant does actually contact the Guards or set his solicitor on him - I'd strongly advising shutting the entire forum down temporarily and consulting a solicitor. That way you have a better chance of looking like you're co-operating, without actually deleting anything and looking like a publisher.

My two,
adam

Seth Brundle

I run www.bmwcarclubforum.co.uk which has over 4000 members (about 1/3 are quite active). To join they must agree to both
http://www.bmwcarclubforum.co.uk/forum_posts.asp?TID=10&PN=1
and
http://bmwcarclubforum.co.uk/registration_rules.asp?FID=0.
The second link is a generic one that came with the forum, the first link being my work. I am told that it is fairly watertight by legal sources but then again, nothing is definite. That said, we have about half a dozen moderators who will edit or move any threads/posts that go against these rules. Any posts moved are moved to a moderators forum which only allows access to those with moderator status. This area also allows other moderators to get opinion on something before taking action if the need is there. I tend to not delete posts as they are 'evidence' so to speak. If you delete them then you have nothing to back up your case (should there ever be the need)!
The poster can also find themselves subject to a suspension or a permanent banning. We recently had a forum member who was suspended complain to the both the club office and to their solicitor as they were dissatisfied with the severity of the punishment. This member was told that they alone were the cause of the suspension as it was not permitted by the rules so I guess our policy works.
Im sure however, that more can be added to our rules but in the meantime, feel free to plagarise them if you wish!