Public Forum incident

[Comcastlu]

What is the name of your state?What is the name of your state?What is the name of your state? MD, USA

Hello,

My name is Luis and i run a non profit, free membership online gaming site that has a public Forum Board. I am the sole owner of the domain name, hosting accounts, and forum license. I have ToS and forum guidelines in place and easily excissible to all members, plus a requirement to agree to them prior to registering. The site is http://thehydeout.com.

Yesterday someone posted a breaking news post about teh new pope, the poster was catholic and was excited about it. What subsequently occured was that another openly gay poster took offense to the thread and began to make snide remarks about the pope, previous popes and the religion. From there it digressed into a flame fest where person A attacked person B, and several other members attempted to derail it into a debate instead of personal attacks. Myself as the Site Administrator and another Moderator got involved in this attempting to breing it back to civil terms and at worst a debate. Person B then began to attack one of my moderators comments, as they were not in line with what her beliefs were. When it was all said and done person B had personally attacked teh moderator in public forum which was a violation of one of our Guidelines.

From there person B made several threats and comments and started Private messaging me as the site admin to strip the specific moderator of her righst and position. I must make clear that all moderators are volunteers and are not paid for their work or the abuse they take. They are also members with limited abilites to move, edit, combine and so in within the forums but have no administrative rights at all. I addressed the moderator and the other mods on my staff in the section that only mods can see. They voted on the mods behavior in question and discussed it and came to the unanimous decision that she was not in violation of her position as she was not using her mod abilities to get an upper hand or abusing them in any way.

From there the Mod attempted to work things out with person B via Private Messaging and that escalated to basically a big explitive fest. Person B contacted me and told me that she was leaving and wouldnt be back until we had new staff. She demanded that i delete her account as she would not be back anytime soon. I respondd to her that i had a firm rule of never deleteing accounts for any reason at all. The only things ever done with accounts was to Suspend/Ban them. I explained to her that uner no circumstances was she in any trouble so she was free to come and go as she pleased and use teh site but i would not delete her account. I also informed her that if she didnt return in 90 days that the sites auto prune mechanism would remove it anyway so no worries. I reassured her that i was the only one with access to the sites personal info as well and i do not under any circumstances barring legal request give out personal info. She was unsatisfied and levied this final comment to me.

Remove my profile Luis

Dont push me to do something we will both regret

You allow your mods to torment and demand apologies but do not reprimand them. If my profile is not removed by midnite my lawyer WILL be contacting you

Did you even bother to take care of the situation? NO
did u ask to see the comments via PM between her and I? No

so tell me...how the hell are u taking care of this?

You arent Thats how

Remove her as a mod or remove my profile ...the choice is yours Luis

For the record she is a not a US citizen she is a Canadian citizen.

 

[Comcastlu]

Upon recieving this i responded with the following:

Candice Hutter,

I will not remove your profile as you wish and i have read all the PMs between you and seek as have all the moderators. Seekay was more then forth coming with them. Since you have decided to threaten myself, and with that the entire community with legal action. I must do what is best for all of us. I will be suspending your account indefinitely, and banning your information and IP strands. I deem this as harrassment and that violates guideline #9

Harassment We have no tolerance for personal attacks as determined valid by forum moderators, whether public or private, towards members or staff. The Private Messaging feature is to NOT be abused. If it is substantiated that a poster is abusing their Private Messaging or using it in a harassing manner or to solicit other members without permission those privileges will be suspended and or posting privileges removed.

I am truely sorry that you wish to proceed this way. Further more I will state do not contact me VIA email, messenger, another member, or PMs or another board. I will send this in PMs for teh records and in email. I will be sending all information to my personal attorney and if you have anything else to say you can address it through your attorney via my attorney.

Below I have taken the liberty of including teh Terms of Service that are accepted and implied by use of this board. I wish you a good day.

Forum Terms & Rules

Please take a moment to review these rules detailed below. If you agree with them and wish to proceed with the registration, simply click the "Register" button below. To cancel this registration, simply hit the 'back' button on your browser.

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.

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 bulletin board. 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 bulletin board to post any material which is knowingly false and/or defamatory, inaccurate, abusive, vulgar, hateful, harassing, obscene, slanderous, racist, profane, sexually oriented, threatening, invasive of a person's privacy, or otherwise in violation of any law. You agree not to post any copyrighted material unless the copyright is owned by you or by this bulletin board.

While the administrators and moderators of this forum will attempt to remove or edit any generally objectionable material as quickly as possible, it is impossible to review every message. Therefore you acknowledge that all posts made to these forums express the views and opinions of the author and not the administrators, moderators or webmaster (except for posts by these people) and hence will not be held liable.

The IP address of all posts and private messages is recorded to aid in enforcing these conditions. You agree that the webmaster, administrator and moderators of this forum have the right to remove, edit, move or close any topic at any time should they see fit. As a user you agree to any information you have entered above being stored in a database. While this information will not be disclosed to any other members, third parties, or telemarketing/spamming companies without your consent the webmaster, administrator and moderators cannot be held responsible for any hacking attempt that may lead to the data being compromised. If for any reason something is brought under question by any legal entity the site reserves the right to comply with any and all legal entities. While not responsible for teh individual views and post of any and all members, volunteer staff, or previous members the site does hold all registered information, emails, and private messages to be the intelectual property of the site, and the site owner. All information will be held with the utmost regard in security as previously stated above.

This forum system uses cookies to store information on your local computer. These cookies do not contain any of the information you have entered above; they serve only to improve your viewing pleasure. A valid e-mail address is required to use the site, it is used only for confirming your registration details and password (and for sending new passwords should you forget your current one).

This site reserves the right to refuse membership to anyone at any given time without prior notice, or for any valid reason. The site also requires verification of age. If you are caught falsifying your age or defrauding the site, we reserve the right to take any recourse or legal action against said person. By registering below you agree that you are at least seventeen years old. If you are not seventeen years old it is solely your responsibility to attain permission from your parents to frequent this site. Anyone under the age of thirteen will require verification and administrative validation to post or be a registered member of the site. By agreeing to these terms you are stating that you have attained all required permissions, and that you our your parent/guardians, have agreed to not hold this site, its members, staff, or owner responsible for any of the content of questionable or mature nature on the site. Furthermore you agree that we are not liable or responsible for any behavioral changes in your personality, due to extended time on this site.

All registering members also agree to follow all forum guidelines. All registering members also agree to respect and respond appropriately to all staff and administration on this site.

By clicking Register below you agree that all information given is valid and not fraudulent, that all proper permissions have been attained, that you are of valid age, and to be bound by these conditions, and those presented in the forum guidelines.

Do not respond to this Message or Email as any response can be used against you in any further legal proceedings.

 

[Comcastlu]

I would also like to include a copy of teh forum guidelines as well just so whom ever responds can see all the info. Above is teh ToS that they must check to agree before they can begin registration. Here are the Forum guidelines that they are suppose to read prior to posting.

As a member of our vast forum community, you must participate responsibly. If you have any questions regarding our Guidelines, please contact any of our forum Moderators or Site Admin via PM or Email. Use of our forums constitutes acceptance and agreement to our current and future Guidelines and Forums Terms & Rules Agreement.**

1. Derogatory racist and or culturally insensitive posts, names, and actions will not be tolerated and may result in posts, screen names, and accounts being edited, deleted, moved, and/or suspended, banned, or terminated from the site. You may not use terms or audio/visual materials referring to ethnic/national origin, ideological/religious beliefs, gender, or sexual preference in a demeaning context.
2. Sexually explicit and inappropriate content, including but not limited to comments, links, pictures, random and pointless swearing, derogatory innuendos, and polls are not allowed on this site. All items meeting the criteria will be addressed swiftly.
3. Appropriate avatars and signatures are allowed and are welcomed as to accentuate individuality. Sig pics or HTML in your signature is NOT allowed
4. Please refrain from creating uber long usernames and ridiculous essays for signatures as it detracts from the quality and cleanliness of the forums. These will be edited at our discretion.
5. Please refrain from forgetting spacing and creating new words that are 1,524 characters long. Please also keep the L33T speak, and computer/AOL speak to a minimum, in usernames, signatures, and within threads as it is also very annoying to the average user.
6. Flame threads are discouraged in the main sections and should be kept primarily to the Flames and Hijacker's section. Threads, which devolve into flame fests and or get hijacked, will generally get moved there. Posts inviting flames, incendiary posts, unprovoked personal attacks, or trolling will also be moved at the Mod team’s discretion. Threads are moved for forum civility not for personal agendas or disdain for specific members.
* Do not post negative posts and discussions that are repeated over and over and over with no other purpose than to disrupt conversation. If you feel the need to say something, say it once and then move on. Do not disrupt multiple threads in order to get your view out.
* You may not bait/troll users. Bait / Trolling is defined as posting with a clear intent to provoke anger, incendiary posts, and behavior that results in other users violating the General Forum Guidelines.
* You may not bait, insult, flame, or otherwise abuse a staff member.
* You may not post in a manner that is harmful to TheHydeout.com Forums. For example, "TheHydeout.com Forums sucks. Go here!", or posting confidential TheHydeout.com documents. If you do, the post will be deleted and you will be banned.
7. Multiple, alternate, and dummy logins are strongly discouraged and will be heavily monitored. Any attempts to defraud members, staff, and the site will be handled aggressively. We will actively 'out' such accounts to avoid confusion and to discourage the anonymous flaming aspect of alt accounts. We will also ban these accounts and all attached to the active IP address.
8. Avoid using the customized features inappropriately. Ridiculously large fonts, pictures, thumbnails, avatars, sigs, and posts that cause the average user to have to scroll from left to right to read them or up and down a full page to read the next post will be edited at our discretion and warnings will be given prior to any further actions.
9. Harassment We have no tolerance for personal attacks as determined valid by forum moderators, whether public or private, towards members or staff. The Private Messaging feature is to NOT be abused. If it is substantiated that a poster is abusing their Private Messaging or using it in a harassing manner or to solicit other members without permission those privileges will be suspended and or posting privileges removed.
10. Naming convention - screen names are subject to either being suspended and or edited by the Site admin if they are deemed racially insensitive, culturally insensitive, and or lacking any true common sense. This is at the discretion of the site admin. Common Decency is asked of all registered users.
11. When posting threads that have sound or may be unsafe for work (i.e. a fart joke or something silly that would be frowned upon at work) Please make sure to label it in the topic of the thread. Otherwise it will be deleted and the poster warned.
12. Moderation & Bans
* You may not evade a ban. Doing so will drastically lengthen your ban. If you have a problem with the banning or feel it was inappropriate, please email the Site Admin or moderator to discuss the length of your ban and which guidelines you have breached.
* You may not publicly complain about or demand a reason for another user's ban, the deletion of a message, or the deletion/closure of a thread. Any discussion about warnings, bans, message deletion, thread deletion and thread closure should be done over private email between the person concerned and the moderators.
* You may not re-edit a message that has been edited by a moderator.
* DO NOT flame or question a moderators actions in open forum, please use discretion and address these issues in Private Messaging.
* All questions directed as to why something happened to “You” should be directed in Private Messages.
* On the same token if the issue affects the community as a whole, members can create a thread in order to maturely discuss the issue with the staff. We encourage this for community health and for needed feedback from the community; you guys do have a voice.
* If you have a personal issue or an unsatisfactory conversation with a moderator please Private message or Email the Site Admin. Menttal. All things done by the Moderators are in the best interest of the forums and the general community.
13. Conversations held between Moderators, the Site Admin, and members are confidential; please do not repost these in the general forums. If you are not involved in the situation or issue refrain from asking for information pertaining to other people’s specific issues. Any and all issues that affect the general population will be addressed in public forum for all to express their thoughts and feelings.
14. All topics and posts are subject to being Moved, Edited, Deleted, Locked, Split, and Merged at the Site Admin or Moderators discretion. Once again this is not for personal issues or reasons but for the best interest of the community.
15. Suspensions and Bans on accounts are strictly confidential and to be discussed by the parties in question. These are public forums but personal accounts. In no way will a moderator or Admin discuss the specifics of these issues with anyone but the person it pertains to. I would ask that no one inquire about situations that do not pertain to you. I hold personal privacy as paramount.
16. All members and moderators are bound to the above guidelines in order to be able to post here. These guidelines are for the better of the community and in respect to all demographics represented here at TheHydeout.com
17. Do not post offers to buy or sell in-game items or accounts for real-world cash. This is a violation of all MMORPG TOS, and by facilitating it here; we would also be in violation and possibly legally responsible. Offers to trade accounts will also be removed.
18. Avatars and Signatures are free. Although free are a privilege and if they are abused the ability will be removed from those users who are incapable of using them correctly. Please refrain from using offensive or inappropriate avatars and signatures. Including but not limited to size and content.
19. Spamming threads and or posts will not be tolerated. Try and make posts that have actual content and not just driven to inflate post counts. Posters found spamming for that purpose or to flood the forums will be dealt with accordingly. Spam includes, but is not limited to, the following:
* Posting nonsensical messages
* "Flooding" the forum with similar meaning messages
* Post-Count farming
* Inciting a forum war or riot
* Outward-style links
* Blatant unauthorized advertising
* Messages without content
* Fraudulent activity (Pyramid schemes, chain letters, etc.)
20. Any violation or repeated violation of above rules will result in administrative action to your posting and forum viewing privileges. The Site Admin reserves the rights to amend these guidelines as necessary for the good of the community as it evolves and grows. Contrary to popular beliefs, the TheHydeout.com Guidelines aren't designed to cover everything. We reserve the right to act if a user's actions, including the user’s posts, are deemed counterproductive to the forum community. Unforeseen loopholes or gray areas in the Guidelines do not grant a mandate to exploit that loophole.
21. Illegal Use:
You may not use our forums for illegal purposes, or in support of illegal activities, as determined by the laws of the United States of America, Canada, and any other Nationally recognized International governing body. Such activities will guarantee a ban. We reserve the right to cooperate with legal authorities and/or third parties in the investigation of any suspected crime or civil wrong doing.

 

[divgradcurl]

Geez, what is it with people getting so worked up over what happens on a web forum on the internet?

Just forget about it. She would have to sue you in Maryland, for what I don't know, but she certainly can't sue you from Canada, so you should just forget about it. Stop threatening her with lawyers, just ignore her.

 

[Comcastlu]

Geez, what is it with people getting so worked up over what happens on a web forum on the internet?

Just forget about it. She would have to sue you in Maryland, for what I don't know, but she certainly can't sue you from Canada, so you should just forget about it. Stop threatening her with lawyers, just ignore her.

Well i kinda figured as much, as for teh life of me i didnt know what she would sue about. But being teh owner of the site and eventually a company based off that site i just wanted to cover my basis and confirm what i believed and that is that i have nothing to worry about. I only mentioned an attorney to call her bluff and put her in the situation that if she really wanted to proceed with this and it was more then an idle threat she needed to follow the correct procedures or they would be ignored. I hope if anyone else posts in here they all agree with your assesment.

 

[davezan]

If I remember it right, clicking the check box beside the "I agree to the terms
and conditions" etc of whatever site I join means I agree to the terms and
conditions etc, even if I don't necessarily agree with them.

Consider yourself lucky she and you don't live in the same area.

IMHO, you also don't have to apologize to her for anything, especially since
you didn't do anything wrong at all. Rather than start with "I am truely sorry
that you wish to proceed this way", you could've better said "It's a shame you
wish to proceed this way".

BTW, I tried to visit your forum but I got a large black block at the top.

 

[dallas702]

Yeah, just do whatever your "terms and conditions" says you can do. First, you don't want this bombthrower on your site anymore. Second, you have the right to do whatever your rules say.

Let her(?) sue you....it's good PR if it goes to court and you make sure the media knows. You'll have tons of new suscribers.