"I own them, so delete ALL of my posts"

3 years ago on the forum I mod on but before I was a mod, there was a big bust up with a few members and admin/mods. Members could edit their posts for as far back as they wanted and they did. Kinda childish and must of taken ages but they changed all their posts to ...
Admin changed it so members could only edit a post for 24 hrs which is what we have on my forum, but my answer is I would delete the member and leave the posts.

 

Exactly what I did Nick. I always add a little section in the privacy policy or whatnot explaining that all posts become mine as soon as they are submitted.

 

Honestly, I never thought about it until now. I don't mind deleting a few post or pictures but I'm not interested in deleting tons of post simply because someone is trying to be a prick. Anyhow, I went and added that one posted by Wayne to my rules just in case.

Thanks for the idea.

 

I know I said it in my post, but if you have an Archive forum, you can just send the posts there, and the posts aren't in the public eye. This way, you have nothing to lose.

 

I use the following clause:

This is because I don't want to discourage the poets, authors and photographers on my site from posting material only to find they have ceded ownership to me. That's not why my site exists and I wouldn't dream of trying to grab ownership of someone else's work in this way.

That said, I can't have people demanding removal of stuff, so this clause ensures that whilst they still own the post and can freely repost it on any other site they choose, they cannot insist they I take it down from my site - once t's there, it's there for good.

I also have "Material from this site may not be reproduced without consent" on every page of the site, however this does not necessarily mean MY consent, it could mean the consent of the post author, who still owns the copyright.

This seems the fairest way to me.

 

I have in my rules/policy that the post is own by me so they can't get it deleted. But I will remove all personal details about them if they wish that, but no more then that.

 

I like the rules you have all shared on this. I'm going to have to write my own bit for future forums.

 

Everyone agrees, upon signing up, in non-small print, that they grant us the right to host the material that they post indefinitely.

And that's that. We make exceptions for certain things but it's rare.

 

Because of the way a role playing forum works, I can only imagine how much of a loss it would be to have someone's entire post history deleted.

 

Yes, we've had a few idiots do various things but for the most part, feature wise, I'm fairly permissive - no limits on editing, SMF comes with a trash forum to restore deleted posts and threads, etc. If it's really serious I restore from backups.

 

I just delete their user but never the posts.

 

This happened to me once; a member threw a temper tantrum over something minor and demanded I delete all his posts. He basically wanted me to choose him over another member, which I wouldn't do. I offered to lock his account and told him to remove any identifying personal information first (they can use the edit function), but refused to delete everything wholesale. He used the edit function to replace his posts with gibberish (except for the links to his site, lol) and demanded again that his account be deleted, so I banned him, undid all his changes, and deleted any links to his site.

After a while he cooled off and joined again under a new name. He thinks I don't know it's him, but I'm ok with him being there as long as he doesn't start trouble again.

 

That sounded like an interesting experience. I kind of think it's funny when people do things under a different name or just anonymously and have no idea you know exactly who they are. If I recall correctly, Lynne had a situation like this that gave me a chuckle.

 

I say just delete the picture, it clears up some space, but don't delete her posts.

 

So far, I've had one such attempt-I reminded them that they were being douches, and left it at that. Then he threatened goatse if I didn't, so I banned his IP and deleted his account.

 

Interesting debate. But what if you just leave them. Whats the worse he/she can do Who will actually do anything about it :frown:

 

I think I can recall only one occasion where a user made a complaint about their posts and wanted them deleted. Luckily, I've always had a Terms of Use posted and visible in the footer so I threw it at them. It is based off of a generic open source terms:

 

A lot of members don't realize we have access to their IP addresses, etc.

 

Or, they simply don't care - it's rather frustrating.

 

I have not run into this issue yet - however my forums have only been up for a couple months, however I am currently working on my very own forum rules and will be adding some sort of clause into the rules to prevent this from happening!