What do you think of...

[JulieVA]

Hi everyone,

Please tell me what you think of these?

1) Terms of Use
2) Community Guidelines

Please share yours

 

[Jack_Rouse]

I've not known a member yet to read mine, for twelve months now I have embedded in mine three sets of 5 united codes with a reward, for telling me the codes, no-one has come forward yet.

 

[PoetJC]

Hi everyone,

Please tell me what you think of these?

1) Terms of Use
2) Community Guidelines

Please share yours

Very concise and professionally displayed. I'm constantly impressed by the work you do on your forum Julie.

My policies - They need to be updated... But they're just a compilation of policies I've seen on the net and adapted to fit my site:

• JPiC Posting Policy
• JPiC Privacy Policy
• JPiC TOS

 

[JulieVA]

Wow! Thanks for sharing this JC

 

[Jura]

"Keep it simple, stupid."

Make it simple, gut stuff, and condense. I wouldn't read all that for a forum.

 

[PoetJC]

Who ever reads ALL forum/website TOSes? I generally don't.
But it is good for the forum owner to legally protect him/herself with a cohesively put together TOS.

J.

 

[Jura]

Might as well have two. A real one and one the members don't read or look for.

 

[Jim McClain]

...it is good for the forum owner to legally protect him/herself with a cohesively put together TOS.

I certainly agree with the legality part. But these kinds of documents that address spammers is a waste of typing. Saying spam will be reported is good. Telling spammers what you will do with their accounts or that you will pluck their eyelashes out one-by-one, etc. is just making the document even longer than it needs to be. They won't be reading it. Heck, 99.9% of your members won't read it.

I put a link in my footer to the ToS and Privacy Policy. I give new registrants a truncated version of the rules and a link to the full Monte. The truncated version is ignored most of the time and my rules are far more lenient that either of the 2 linked to in this thread. But they still get it wrong. I just wanna reach through my monitor and thwack them on the head sometimes.

My guess is the members of my site have seen spam only 3 times in 7+ years. I have spam prevention measures in place so that it lands in the moderation queue, or the bad word filter catches it and leaves them wondering how they can keep typing the same word(s) over and over and it never seems to appear on the page.

I don't let bounces go ignored. If a member joins with a bad email address, their account gets deleted. The same address won't be able to be used for a year. I don't use the ban IP or email address feature of my forum software. IP addresses are dealt with at the server level.

After nearly 20 years of working on forums, I know what to expect. I do what I can to block the bad actors before they can act bad on my site. A lot of members still break the rules, but usually only once. I don't ban them for being too lazy to read the rules, but I sure do give them what for if they do.

Jim

 

[Grayjay]

I don't let bounces go ignored. If a member joins with a bad email address, their account gets deleted. The same address won't be able to be used for a year. I don't use the ban IP or email address feature of my forum software. IP addresses are dealt with at the server level.


Jim

This makes perfect sense! How does one go about setting this up?

 

[Jim McClain]

There are options available in the configuration of vBulletin software (I use 3.8.x). My server is a VPS, so I have a number of options available through WHM/cPanel too.

Jim

 

[JulieVA]

I had a lawyer review & edit my TOS & Registration Agreement.

It doesn't matter if a member doesn't read them. It only matters that they are prominently displayed & available on the web site. Here's why: Whether or not you read it, if you are using the site, you are bound by it and it covers me & the staff.

 

[Akela]

I've not known a member yet to read mine...

They read them *after* they break a rule and you point them to a relevant section of your guidelines. If such a section doesn't exist, they can claim full right to carry on.

...for twelve months now I have embedded in mine three sets of 5 united codes with a reward, for telling me the codes, no-one has come forward yet.

This is an excellent idea, actually.

 

[nolvorite]

It looks pretty organized to me. You should probably take out "Fair and Impartial Forum Moderation and Administration" or reword it in such a way that says staff members won't be unfair to members in some way instead of that, because the way it's written it seems like it's been a problem in your board

 

[LotusJeff]

The one area I do not see in your TOS is a liability limitations section.

LotusJeff

 

[Grayjay]

Thank you eJM. Am learning how to set up phpbb forum will check to see if they provide something similar.

 

[JulieVA]

The one area I do not see in your TOS is a liability limitations section.

LotusJeff

My initial answer is because we have 'hold harmless' clauses everywhere - meaning we have NO liability for anything and we are an LLC...but please elaborate.

 

[s.molinari]

Good work Julie.

My personal take on such rules/ TOSes/ Privacy Policies/ etc.

They are needed to CYA.

And who cares if users don't read the TOS or rules you (or any other smart forum/ community owner) put(s) forward. What every forum/ community owner definitely needs are rules, they must be agreed to by the users at registration and can and will be pointed back to, when any users break them, ergo when the rules are enforced.

Rules are a mandatory part of any disciplined action, along with the possible penal action for breaking them.

One can argue about clarity. I also think clarity of a set of rules is important, but so is comprehensiveness. Missing rules for the sake of clarity is a no-go. Too many rules, for the sake of comprehensiveness, like taking into account every single exception there might be, is also a no-go. You basically only need rules to avoid reoccurring conflict. If you are making rules up, for one-off issues, you are overdoing it, for example.

At any rate, I would venture to say, every single one of us want a disciplined and orderly community, so there is no denying, setting rules and having users agree to them (whether they read them or not) is an online community must. In some countries, it is actually law that user must be told the rules about how their data will be used on the site (in accordance with laws about that usage, which is actually paradoxically stupid, but oh well, like in Germany, the land of rules, but also well known for their discipline!).

Scott

 

[LotusJeff]

My initial answer is because we have 'hold harmless' clauses everywhere - meaning we have NO liability for anything and we are an LLC...but please elaborate.

You do have clauses that indicate the user is to "hold harmless" your website. A limitation of liability states, in the event you do sue me and the judgement is found in your favor, here is the maximum amount of liability you have agreed to."

My last line in my Limitations of Liability clause is:

IF, NOTWITHSTANDING THE OTHER PROVISIONS OF THIS AGREEMENT, ANY LOTUSELAN.NET PARTY IS FOUND TO BE LIABLE TO YOU FOR ANY DAMAGE OR LOSS WHICH ARISES OUT OF OR IS ANY WAY CONNECTED TO YOUR USE OF THE SERVICES, LIABILITY OF THE LOTUSELAN.NET PARTIES SHALL IN NO EVENT EXCEED US$100.00.​

Most contracts have three critical areas: Warranties, Limitation of Liability and Indemnification.

A key item to remember is: you are providing a service. Any user of your service can hold you liable. Any user can sue you and your business when ever they want. A LLC is setup to protect your personal assets when you are sued and they win.

 

[JulieVA]

OK - I understand what you are saying... I think I'll be adding something like this...

Did you get this from a lawyer?

Also - why $100 - why not $75 or $50?

Thanks so much!

IF, NOTWITHSTANDING THE OTHER PROVISIONS OF THIS AGREEMENT, ANY LOTUSELAN.NET PARTY IS FOUND TO BE LIABLE TO YOU FOR ANY DAMAGE OR LOSS WHICH ARISES OUT OF OR IS ANY WAY CONNECTED TO YOUR USE OF THE SERVICES, LIABILITY OF THE LOTUSELAN.NET PARTIES SHALL IN NO EVENT EXCEED US$100.00

 

[LotusJeff]

OK - I understand what you are saying... I think I'll be adding something like this...

Did you get this from a lawyer?

Also - why $100 - why not $75 or $50?

Thanks so much!

Good question. There was actual thought on the amount.

My forum falls into the broad category of automotive repair and restoration advice. We looked for comparable types of services. We do not repair autos or provide parts. We provide auto repair advice.

Online auto repair advice is the same as a printed repair manual. A printed repair manual will cost about $30. Since we provide a free service, we defined the value of using the service to the equivalent to purchasing a repair manual. We then tripled the amount to set the liability limits.

We specifically used printed materials as our base. In the event of being sued for defective content, we would associate our business to the printed media. There is a long case study history in the US of the publisher having liability immunity for defective content.

If you are interested in reading about liability associated with defective content, then review the following: http://kaner.com/pdfs/sigdocContent.pdf

LotusJeff