Warning about violating terms

Technical Details

Forum version : #phpBB2
Position : Administrator
Concerned browser(s) : Google Chrome
Screenshot of problem : https://ibb.co/JjmbST5
Who the problem concerns : Yourself
When the problem appeared : today
Forum link : http://grandecalcio.forumotion.com

Description of problem

We've been warned about violating terms.

But not told what we did and what to fix.

So please kindly let us know.

Thanks,
Pablo

Hello @Pablo Bueno,

You should read this: https://www.forumotion.com/terms-of-service , and remove the things you are being told in that warning you received (If any...)

Best regards,
Mihai

From the message you shared, it looks like it has something to do with copyright infringements.

Mihai wrote:Hello @Pablo Bueno,

You should read this: https://www.forumotion.com/terms-of-service , and remove the things you are being told in that warning you received (If any...)

Best regards,
Mihai

I read it, and I didn't receive a specific warning on any specific posts. Of course, whomever sent it, would have that information would they not? There's 8000 messages. I'm not going to comb through them all.

SLGray wrote:From the message you shared, it looks like it has something to do with copyright infringements.

Wouldn't it be helpful if a specific message was cited?

Copyright infringement?

I can't see anything that sticks out in the last few days and I can't/won't go over 8000 messages looking for it either.

So, who sent the warning? Surely they would be able to point out the specific message.

It does not matter when it was added to your forum.  You will have to go through all images, links, widgets, posts, blogs, publications, extra pages, etc.

Since your forum is closed to guests, we can not see what is on your forum.

P.S.  That message you got in your AP is form Forumotion.  It is their litigation team which is not connected to this forum.  No one from that team is on this forum so we can not give you too much help.

Hello,

If you go through the list of reports in the Miscellaneous section of the ACP, I believe it provides you with a copy of the report that was sent to Forumotion which should contain any specific messages that were reported. That is about the best information we here on the support forum can provide you with. As stated above, the litigation team works independently and does not view the support forums, their job is specifically to handle reports submitted about violations of the terms of service.

Ultimately it is the responsibility of the founder of the forum and/or any staff they appoint to ensure their forum is in full compliance of the rules at all times.

-Brandon

Yes, in the AP, there is a section for reports and one of the tabs is for litigation.

SLGray wrote:It does not matter when it was added to your forum.  You will have to go through all images, links, widgets, posts, blogs, publications, extra pages, etc.

Since your forum is closed to guests, we can not see what is on your forum.

P.S.  That message you got in your AP is form Forumotion.  It is their litigation team which is not connected to this forum.  No one from that team is on this forum so we can not give you too much help.

If they can't tell me what is the offense, then I'm not going to go through 8000 postings. They're nuts. We'll just move. Forummotion lacks so many features anyway.

There's no way to contact the litigation team. I don't know what sort of game they're playing, but I don't care, there's like 8 of us that use that forum to keep in touch and chat with each other, yes privately, and to the best of my knowledge we haven't broken any rules.

So like I said, if they can't tell me what the offense is, whatevs, we'll leave and go elsewhere.

brandon_g wrote:Hello,

If you go through the list of reports in the Miscellaneous section of the ACP, I believe it provides you with a copy of the report that was sent to Forumotion which should contain any specific messages that were reported. That is about the best information we here on the support forum can provide you with. As stated above, the litigation team works independently and does not view the support forums, their job is specifically to handle reports submitted about violations of the terms of service.

Ultimately it is the responsibility of the founder of the forum and/or any staff they appoint to ensure their forum is in full compliance of the rules at all times.

-Brandon

It shows that there is a litigation, but again doesn't state what it is.

Like I said, we haven't done anything illegal, no porn, no hate messages, nothing of that nature. I recently banned someone who was trolling. I can only imagine he fabricated something. But again, if litigation team has seen something worthy of closing our forum, and can't tell me what it is, I don't really care...I'm not wasting time looking for it. We'll leave and go somewhere else. It's no sweat off my back.

From what I see from that message in your AP, it has to do with copyright infringement.   Do you have downloads, official images or merchandise from somewhere, etc?

SLGray wrote:From what I see from that message in your AP, it has to do with copyright infringement.   Do you have downloads, official images or merchandise from somewhere, etc?

No, we do not. A few youtube links and/or tweets, and that's about it.

I suspect it's the fool we banned because he was sending falsified abuse reports. He came on and demanded his account be deleted, and we told him there was an option for him to do that himself. Then he started harrassing through PM's. We disabled that function for him, and finally he sent many fake abuse reports. After he was banned, we received this litigation.

There is nothing public about him on the site, no name, address, etc. Just his ramblings of a mad man. I don't know what else to say exept that there is no copyright infringement.

Whomever has determined that we have violated anything is playing a game. How can they not be? They've given us no clue as to what they want done. This is absurd. They have 8 days to give us a clue, or we move. I have a new home already sorted out. This is literally a forum for about 6-10 people at any one given time. We talk sport and current events. We're no harm or threat to anyone.

Even so, the litigation team would not post  that message if you did not break the Terms of Service.

SLGray wrote:Even so, the litigation team would not post  that message if you did not break the Terms of Service.

Yeah, thanks for your help. They're not helping. I mean, just give the post...obviously they would have assessed that. How hard can it be? It's just a game. I'm not going to play it. Whatever...good luck litigation team with your bs.

hello

you can try to delete those posts that are referring to this person ..laws nowadays are very strict about copyrights and personal data information
even a youtube video can sometimes have copyright distribution note by the owner

He is anonymous. He can also delete his own posts and account. There is no identifying information about this person on the site. He's even intimated his gmail account was created only for the forum and he has changed it already multiple times.

He has access to delete whatever he likes.

If that were the problem, why doesn't litigation detail this?

Even still, this whole ordeal indicates it's time to go to something less restrictive. If you give a warning, you have at least the obligation to give specifics as to what.

In principle I won't go on a goose egg hunt to appease someone in litigation. If they want to destroy/nuke the forum, go ahead. Our 8 active users know already and we have external means to contact them. We'll build somewhere else in this case. I don't expect that litigation will be reasonable and explain what they feel the problem is, and Im not going to do much more than inquire here. I've already wasted enough time on this.

Don't care.

Hello @Pablo Bueno

Your forum was sent a warning as you have broke our TOS.
You have post/s on your forum with private data posted in public view that my be IP addresses or Email addresses of one or more of your members / Ex members

By law and in the TOS you must not shire / sell any private data of your members to public.
We take this kind of breach really Seriously.

You must remove any posts with members or Ex members Email addresses / IP addresses and any posts that my be upsetting to members of the public.

If this is not removed by the time the clock runs out your forum will be banned without warning.
Your forum will also be Monitored for any more posts that may be breaking our TOS or any law's.

Ape wrote:Hello @Pablo Bueno

Your forum was sent a warning as you have broke our TOS.
You have post/s on your forum with private data posted in public view that my be IP addresses or Email addresses of one or more of your members / Ex members




By law and in the TOS you must not shire / sell any private data of your members to public.
We take this kind of breach really Seriously.

You must remove any posts with members or Ex members Email addresses / IP addresses and any posts that my be upsetting to members of the public.

If this is not removed by the time the clock runs out your forum will be banned without warning.
Your forum will also be Monitored for any more posts that may be breaking our TOS or any law's.

Ok well, their email address was not published. I believe the IP address that was on display was my own. I'll delete that, and that's about as far as I go since nothing else was made public. His thoughts are his own. He can delete whatever he likes when his ban is up. We opted to make a space where no one gets banned for giving their opinion. He had that right too, but if he doesn't like something he wrote, the numerous conspiracy theories he shared that were asinine, he can delete it himself.

The report says it was there IP address and we have seen the proof this was right by law you can not do this you can't post any ones data online with out them saying so this is a breach of your TOS.

My advice is Don't post anything to anyone about account data no matte what them members may do.
If you have a problem with a member it's best to talk to them by PM and try and sort this out in a nice clean manner.

If all the posts are removed with data on then when the clock has ran out you will be ok if the posts remain then your forum could be banned and removed.

Ape wrote:The report says it was there IP address and we have seen the proof this was right by law you can not do this you can't post any ones data online with out them saying so this is a breach of your TOS.

My advice is Don't post anything to anyone about account data no matte what them members may do.
If you have a problem with a member it's best to talk to them by PM and try and sort this out in a nice clean manner.

If all the posts are removed with data on then when the clock has ran out you will be ok if the posts remain then your forum could be banned and removed.

I deleted the post in question. The user has had free run of expression despite many weird obsessions with conspiracies, and calling others who didn't agree with him "a retard".

When he started sending abuse reports, then he was IP banned, but for a week. As far as the rest goes, if the violation is what you say, then it's been removed.

If there is anything else, we need to know what specifically. We don't break any of your TOS. I'm only concerned with your comment "anything that offends the public". That's pretty vague. The forum is not public anyway, but if that's going to be a way out, and we're going to be nuked because of that, then there's nothing else I can do and we'll go somewhere else. We're already prepared to do so.

Thank you, If everything else is ok and our Team don't find anything else then they will remove the timer on your ACP.

Ape wrote:Thank you, If everything else is ok and our Team don't find anything else then they will remove the timer on your ACP.

Thanks for being specific here.

As I said before, if your team "finds something" they have an obligation to let us know what it is, reasonably. That would be appreciated and more efficient.

I'm not going on a search to find something obscure that "offends" someone.

Our forum is used by, at best 10 users, and mostly between 6-8.

If we're going to be put under a microscope, we have other options set up to go to. Just saying.

It is down to you the founder to make sure you and your members stick to the TOS and the law.
You must make sure all posts on your forum is watched for bad out of taste posts and things that may break your TOS or the law.

This is why you was warned in the first place.
No matter what host you use your should always know your TOS and the law when it comes to your members data and what you can and can't post.

My advice would be to keep a close eye on posts and make sure your members know the TOS as well.
If you can't be on your forum all the time i would say get a staff member or two to help you with it.

The forum is not that big so it should not be hard to read your posts to make sure they are ok.

Ape wrote:It is down to you the founder to make sure you and your members stick to the TOS and the law.
You must make sure all posts on your forum is watched for bad out of taste posts and things that may break your TOS or the law.

This is why you was warned in the first place.
No matter what host you use your should always know your TOS and the law when it comes to your members data and what you can and can't post.

My advice would be to keep a close eye on posts and make sure your members know the TOS as well.
If you can't be on your forum all the time i would say get a staff member or two to help you with it.

The forum is not that big so it should not be hard to read your posts to make sure they are ok.

Heres the thing, per your TOS we aren't breaking any laws. The screen shot that you finally told me was a problem was an oversight. I don't think it was meant to be there. It was about me anyway.

If something "offends" someone because they don't share political views, or opinions of the same nature, I'm not going to police that. I don't know what is "bad or out of taste to you" or anyone else, but nothing we post is out of taste to us, obviously.

If that gets us nuked, we go somewhere else. I don't know what else to say here.

Posting the IP address in public is breaking the TOS and the law says you must keep data like that away from public view.

It don't matter who's IP address it is this data can be used to fine some ones address or where they live and it can also be used to hack people in the right / wrong hands.

As a founder / Admin / Staff member you have this tool for a reason.
You are the one trusted to keep this data to your self not to post it for the world to see and use.

It might be a good move to look over your forum for other things like copyright items and Email addresses.
Yes this might take time but it will help you in the long run.

Ape wrote:Posting the IP address in public is breaking the TOS and the law says you must keep data like that away from public view.

It don't matter who's IP address it is this data can be used to fine some ones address or where they live and it can also be used to hack people in the right / wrong hands.

As a founder / Admin / Staff member you have this tool for a reason.
You are the one trusted to keep this data to your self not to post it for the world to see and use.

It might be a good move to look over your forum for other things like copyright items and Email addresses.
Yes this might take time but it will help you in the long run.

Like I said, it was an oversight. It was my IP anyway. And it's gone. Thanks for being specific, finally. That was all I was asking for.

No email addresses have ever been posted. We take privacy seriously. Most members registered a completely separate email address just to register for the forum. We don't use social media. No one cares about that.

As far as I know, none of the typical youtube or twitter posting reposts have copyright information on them, but I really don't have the will or time to look over 8000 postings. So, at this point, I hope we satisfied your requirements. If not, then thanks for the last year and see you later.

Hi @Pablo Bueno
I have spoken to the member and they have said they would like to have the account deleted from your forum.
As the member is banned they can't remove them self from your forum until you un ban them.

please can you remove this members account for your forum ?

As the warning has now been removed i will close this case.

Problem solved & topic archived. Please read our forum rules: ESF General Rules