Request post deleting by banned members?

[Thomasss]

When a user is banned and they request their posts to be deleted, what do you do? Would you delete the posts, or would you ignore the request? What if they threaten to come after you with a lawyer?

And if they are banned, do the posts become property of the site or do they remain property of the banned user?

 

[ddoesmc]

As it always says in the terms "All topics and posts are property of x and may be modified or archived for records.". If they really want it, I'll just move it to the archives of the forum so it still counts in our post count.

 

[jonnybrobot]

they are property of the site I would think and you should just tell him you don't care if he was embarrassed to put them then he shouldn't have done so

 

[Cierra]

I don't. Now, if I got an actual notice from a lawyer I would remove them.

 

[Nebulous]

I do and I have done it for a few members who've been banned or had their accounts deleted. I'd rather get them out of my hair completely than deal with someone pissed off because we wont comply with a simple request.

I even deleted a member with 11,000 posts one time. Yeah it was a blow to the stats, but we made them up in time.

Stats don't really matter that much anyway, its the bonds you form with your community members that really matter.

 

[Scribbler397]

As ddoesmc said, as long as you included in your terms of use that the posts belong to the forum and you have royalty free rights to use them in any way you see fit, then you are good.

I never delete posts unless I have to. I can't afford the numbers going down.

 

[Thomasss]

Deleting posts in my opinion would just cause confusion in threads, so I do not do it. If the person want's all their posts deleted for whatever reason, they should have read the terms which state that all content posted belongs to the site. ^.^ And any lawyer would know that they could not do much in the case of that. 😛

 

[Mozzie]

The only time they can take legal action is if it is of a copy write material that was posted be the member who owns that license , i would delete them all anyway, no need to keep them

 

[Ash]

I would keep the posts or just move them to the archives in case they get serious. Of course if they threatened action with a laywer then I would get rid of them as long as its a serious threat

 

[John]

99.99% of people threatening with a lawyer is fake. 😛 This is where a good ToS comes in, putting something like this (I'm using FP's as an example) will ensure that you won't have legal issues:

"By submitting content to this site in any form or by any manner, you grant Forum Promotion, its owners and servants a perpetual, irrevocable, worldwide, royalty-free and non-exclusive license to use, distribute, reproduce, modify, adapt and publicly display that content through the site and services or any other similar or related business, in any medium now existing or later devised, including without limitation in advertising and publicity."

If you add something similar to that, I don't think there isn't much that someone could actually do in court. 😛

 

[Platipoo]

Deleting posts in my opinion would just cause confusion in threads, so I do not do it. If the person want's all their posts deleted for whatever reason, they should have read the terms which state that all content posted belongs to the site. ^.^ And any lawyer would know that they could not do much in the case of that. 😛

I think I've seen a forum somewhere that instead of deleting posts will edit them with a variation of "deleted post" or some sorts. It doesn't take down post counts though it doesn't look pretty and still can make discussions incomprehensible. If I have put on the terms that all posts belong to the site and the banned member has agreed to the terms, I don't think I'll completely delete posts unless it contains offensive material.

 

[MrDawn]

Nope. I think any content that you or I contributes to a forum, stays with the forum as it belongs to that forum now whether or not I go inactive or get banned for what ever reasons should I ever get banned.

 

[Mikaya]

I would ignore the request because they made their contributions and it wouldn't be fair to remove them, especially if they were an active and dedicated poster once. I don't think they would go that far and get a lawyer. That's just silly. 😛

I'd say the posts would still belong to the banned user. It makes sense.

 

[Teg]

I'm pretty sure I'd tell them to shove it, in a nice way. Almost all forum owners technically own the content posted to their site. Depending on the forum software, deleted posts can actually be recovered anyway. Honestly, I wouldn't delete a user's posts, but if they wanted them removed, I'd put them in a board that only I can see or something like that.

 

[Joshua Farrell]

I personally wouldn't delete accounts and posts, but would move the related posts and topics to a hidden archived board, if the topics aren't important, or aren't currently being posted in.

 

[Shawn Gossman]

I don't delete banned member accounts or content simply because I ignore all banned members. If they send me an email, I delete them usually without reading them. I banned them, I sent them away therefore I see myself having no obligation to ever pay attention to them again.

They're welcome to seek legal assistance.

I'm very laid back and I hate banning, so if you do something bad enough to actually force me to ban you-at that point, I wash my hands of you completely. 🙂

That is my system for this!

 

[Cosmic]

I've had to deal with this a few times. It's usually a bad idea to remove the posts, as it makes threads look confusing to have posts missing. If the content is against the rules, it should be removed, but otherwise, shouldn't be. Any legal threats the member makes will almost certainly be bluffs, and if you have a good TOS, will also be meaningless.

 

[Forces of Steel]

Absolutely not. There's no reason to delete your own content, all because someone got fussy over you dropping the banhammer on them.

 

[Ashley]

Deleting posts in my opinion would just cause confusion in threads, so I do not do it. If the person want's all their posts deleted for whatever reason, they should have read the terms which state that all content posted belongs to the site. ^.^ And any lawyer would know that they could not do much in the case of that. 😛

I'm not much of a stats freak, but like some members on my site, I do find it a tad off-putting when someone is banned and we're left with, say, 40 less posts than we had yesterday (random example). Basically what I do, when I ban someone, especially permanently, all their posts get moved to the trash bin (so as to keep up with current stats) and I simply deactivate their account and leave it at that. I don't run a business type forum, just a general discussion one, so I'm not worried about lawsuits or anything like that. Besides that, members don't have access to the trash bin, only staff members do, so really there wouldn't be much to worry about in the first place.