Legal obligations, when a member demands I remove his posted messages?

[Still Waters]

I wonder if my TOS is sufficient. May I ask folks to please look at my registration agreement, as well as my posted rules and policies? If anyone spots anything missing or insufficient, would you please privately message me?

Sorry, I meant please privately message me with what's lacking in my TOS. Please, continue to publicly post in this thread your experiences and thoughts on the issue. Your support is helping me, greatly. Thanks.

[Raz Meister]

If they threaten a lawsuit and are actually not minors (i.e., they pose a serious and very likely threat), then remove the posts.

I would have to disagree with that one.

[CeleronXT]

I would have to disagree with that one.

Nice of you to explain why. That was good insight.

[tamarian]

I have a few members that have asked me to remove all of their posted messages. These were among the most active members. So, their posts are all over the place, and are integral to innumerable threads. Their messages are very informative and contribute to the enjoyment by other forum members.

In accordance with their wishes, I've already removed their usernames and email addresses. But, what are my legal obligations, here, regarding their posted messages?

I know you guys are mostly not lawyers, and I'm just looking for your friendly support and shared experiences. Many thanks for your help.

On our forum, we will oblige and remove specific posts by request, if those posts have not been an important part of a thread, or if it contained personal information. And they have to use the "report" link for each post.

If the user insists on deleting every single post of theirs, we ask them to pay up in advance for this effort, and charge $5 per post.

But for some reason they change their mind after that

It's not just a simple SQL query, if you want to also protect other mebers' posts from being deleted, if that post is the first in a thread, etc., or you want to place a "post removed per author request" note, so other posters don't like like idiots replying to no one.

[Still Waters]

If the user insists on deleting every single post of theirs, we ask them to pay up in advance for this effort, and charge $5 per post.

I like this idea for the future. I think you're undercharging, though. Your time should be worth at least $10 for each post. Especially since you must sift through each message, eliminating only the identifying information in the message, so that the thread is still intelligible.

I've sent an email to the "Privacy Rights Clearinghouse" (University of San Diego, Center for Public Interest Law), asking them what my legal obligations are, as well. I'll let you know when I hear back from them.

[•§¤»Åpëx«¤§•]

Either way, they have no case. As previously mentioned, in place of their usernames will appear "[Deleted User]" or "Unregistered" upon account deletion, so they couldn't bring up defamation of character or whatever they would sue for.

Even if their names were associated with their posts, it's not as though they've copyrighted their usernames anyway. I myself would probably ignore the whole thing. If you're intent on averting confrontation, then just delete the posts.

Best of luck to you.

[the Sandman]

Because reverting them to guest can disrupt the flow of conversation while you are reading a thread. What if someone dosent quote someone and they start refering to each other by member name? I could solve that with a query on the post and thread tables but I dont like running such queries.

Wouldn't a simple replacement variable for the username take care of this easily?

[Still Waters]

Wouldn't a simple replacement variable for the username take care of this easily?

May I ask, would you please provide an example of how this would work?

[Martz]

The way I see it, the post is actually the copyright of the user who posted it, because they are the author. Just because they registered on your forum, doesn't mean they give up their copyright and it transfers to you, with everything they have published via your forums.

[the Sandman]

May I ask, would you please provide an example of how this would work?

AdminCP > Styles & Templates > Replacement Variable Manager Click the "Add New Replacement Variable" link next to the style you want to work in. Now, enter the word or phrase you wish changed, and the word or phrase you want it changed to and hit save. Poof - it's changed, everywhere, even in things like the username and titles in the postbit, quoted things, PMs - everywhere (not on the database, but in what people can see, which is what matters). Very easy to add, edit, revert...this can be a fun alternative to censoring words. Basically, words that have been replaced cannot appear on the Board - their replacement is automatically inserted. This can be defeated though the same way the censor can be, but how many users know how to do that? Make sure to add the replacements to each style (they go to child styles automatically, which can then be further customized per sub-style).

Check them out - they are way fun and quite useful. And if Memeber X insists his identity be taken off the system, you can simply replace "Member X" with another name of your choosing - no need to delete users, look for posts or quotes with the old name, run queries...takes less than a minute and their name is gone...Delete their profile data, replace their username and move on...