New Boards.ie Terms of Use and Privacy Policy - your feedback welcome

Red Sleeping Beauty

Darragh wrote: »

This is the first revision of both documents and are an important step in protecting you as a member of our site. We welcome all questions, though if there is something you disagree with, please do let us know below with your reason.

Darragh wrote: »

Ha, I wish it was a slow month! The point of this is just like every other site out there, to have Terms of use that protect users and clarify the rules and guidelines of this site.

You could have at least been honest and said that it's to protect Boards Ltd. not the users. This kind of talk of protecting (or "serving") the individual person is similar to the rhetoric you hear from businesses.

Darragh wrote: »

The amount of legal threats and queries we get on a weekly basis would surprise you.



Can you point me to just one thing in the Terms of Use that prevents you from doing something you're allowed to do today, that changes the site or that would stop you from using the site?

Are these threats from anon users with 10posts that had just joined that week and can't string a sentence together without txt spk or are they genuine credible "threats" made in an official manner? Isn't there a big difference between "threatening" legal action and actually suing someone?

Steve wrote: »

Basically it boils down to 'boards' as an entity retaining the right to reproduce what you posted to in order to serve it to others - for example, when you read this comment, boards has effectively re-produced and re-used my words in order to serve the page that you are now reading. Without that clause, boards would effectively have to ask my permission every time someone viewed this thread.

Yes, the point is that they own this post, your post and every other post made since 1998. I think however, that this somehow contradicts the "you own your own words" position. Especially taken into account that you can't edit/delete your posts after a period of time.

Steve

Alan Rouge wrote: »

Yes, the point is that they own this post, your post and every other post made since 1998. I think however, that this somehow contradicts the "you own your own words" position. Especially taken into account that you can't edit/delete your posts after a period of time.

Ownership and copyright are not the same. From what I understand, copyright on material belongs to the author even if they don't own it - the only exception being in an employee / employer relationship where the employer owns the copyright on anything an employee happens to 'invent'.

Under the TOU, boards is claiming licence to reproduce said copyrighted material in order to publish it here and in order to allow someone to quote it in a reply..

I think the 'you own your own words' bit is more like 'you are responsible for your own words should they cause offence', there's a substantial difference.

ynotdu

Do i not speak English?
The fact that a poster who wants to leave is not possible is NOT acceptable for a site that discusses Democracy so often.

Any fool can realise that deleting their posts before they decide to leave would just make a nonsense of forums where their questions or posts would be deleted.

So a simple Question:Why cant a member Totally leave?with the provisor that their previous posts remain but they cannot post any further and their user name has ex-member under the posts left behind?

It surely does not take a Lawyer to answer that:mad:

aidan_walsh

ynotdu, that's exactly how it is now. Want to leave boards? Don't post any more. Fullfills pretty much all of what you say above, except the "ex-member" bit, which I personally don't really see a need for. That would also be a further complication if said member were to decide to come back. Which would be easier/better for them, log in and resume posting, or apply to rejoin the site and wait until their account is reapproved?

parsi

It's becoming clear that the focus of Boards has changed from a community-based, somewhat eclectic site to a monetised site that caters mainly to whatever the current fad is (I won't dignify it with the term zeitgeist).

If that is what it has to be then that's grand. If the site needs large numbers of users even if they are one-trick ponies then grand. If the site wants control over posting and the ability to publicise posts then that's grand.

However if that's what the site wants then please junk this false claim that the site is a community where folk engage in rational debate rather than constant bashing of whatever sector is deemed by the Indo to be the current scapegoat.

ynotdu

aidan_walsh wrote: »

ynotdu, that's exactly how it is now. Want to leave boards? Don't post any more. Fullfills pretty much all of what you say above, except the "ex-member" bit, which I personally don't really see a need for. That would also be a further complication if said member were to decide to come back. Which would be easier/better for them, log in and resume posting, or apply to rejoin the site and wait until their account is reapproved?

Hi aidan,it is the principle of officialy not being able to leave if a member wants to that is objectionable.
I asked two simple questions on my first post on this thread that no answer/explanation was forthcoming from the top.
it may seem to be a subtle diffrience between simply not posting again and leaving.

i find it objectionable,but cannot go beyond that as i still not given a rational reason for it.

Darragh

Overheal wrote: »

[you agree not to]

# post Material that contains violence, or offensive subject matter or contains a link to an adult website
# post Material that promotes or encourages illegal activity
# post Material that infringes any patent, trademark, trade secret, copyright, rights of privacy or publicity, or other proprietary right of any party

[you may not use a username which]

# Contains any profanity, is vulgar or offensive, or promotes an illegal activity;
# Misleadingly impersonates someone else.

These Terms get abused quite a lot. When you quote a news article (a gun violence article perhaps) or register a username with Bertie's name just to make AH jokes, or if people discuss smoking weed, drinking underage, or pirating software or other digital material.This reads as a backdoor to allowing, for instance, links to torrents etc. doesnt it

Point taken, thanks. It was also raised in the Mod forum and I think the correct statement on posting would be:

# post Material that promotes violence, or contains offensive subject matter or contains links to NSFW websites except where the content is appropriate to the content of the forum and you have been granted specific permission to do so, subject to our charter or guidelines on said content.

Regarding the usernames:

# Contains any profanity, is vulgar or offensive, or promotes an illegal activity;
# Misleadingly impersonates someone else.

I think this is fair enough. We will have to make judgement calls as we go but overall having that in place means people have to be more careful when choosing usernames (we get at least one request a day by email asking for a change)

I may put the word "intentionally" in front of "misleadingly impersonates someone else..."

You agree to waive any moral rights in your Material for the purposes of its posting on Boards.ie and the purposes specified above.

indeed. I need to understand that one myself.

I'm not exactly sure what you see when you say

This reads as a backdoor to allowing, for instance, links to torrents etc. doesnt it

?

The rest of your point I think is answered by later comments?

Darragh

Time Magazine wrote: »

I had a quick read, Darragh.

"We reserve the rights to change usernames at our discretion." Typo?

"...the following will lead to a suspension of your privileges on Boards.ie: ... extended periods of inactivity." I don't think that will lead to anything. Pedantic, I know, but these things are pedantic documents.

Introduction: "Adverts Marketplace Ltd"
Section 9: "Adverts Marketplaceing Ltd"
Section 11.4: "Adverts Marketing Marketplace Ltd"
Section 11.5: "Adverts Marketplaceing Ltd"
etc. Make your mind up! You have registered the first one.

Then I gave up. Also I would suggest that you specify in the Privacy Statement that PMs are private unless (i) yer asked by the cops to show the goods or (ii) the PM is reported. I think that's something that should be adhered to but also specified.

Excellent, thank you very very much for that. Very helpful indeed

Darragh

minidazzler wrote: »

Regarding the Privacy Policy

Information relating to your use of Boards.ie generally. This includes, for example, private messages, login and logout times, polls you’ve voted on, threads to which you have subscribed and posts you’ve thanked.

Can you guys read any PM's sent? Or just the ones reported?

As Conor says, while it's technically possible for those with access to the servers to do this (Ross and Conor), they don't. It's internal policy that we don't as much as anything.

Yes, we (Those with access to the Admins forum) can read reported private messages.

Darragh

iWillBeReborn wrote: »

What does all the following mean?

The first bit I get.

You are solely responsible for your conduct and any Material that you submit, post, and/or display on Boards.ie. You agree not to post Material contrary to these Terms of Use. We may, but are not obliged to, remove or limit access to Material from any user which breaches these Terms of Use.

Then:
By posting any Material on or through Boards.ie, you grant us a limited license to use, modify, publicly perform, publicly display, reproduce, and distribute such Materials in connection with Boards.ie or the promotion thereof.

The license you grant to us is non-exclusive, royalty free and fully paid, sub licensable, and worldwide.

You are responsible for making sure that you have all rights to what you post, including the rights necessary for you to grant the foregoing licenses to same.

You represent and warrant that: (i) you own the Material posted by you or otherwise have the right to grant the license set forth in this section, and (ii) the posting of the Material does not violate the privacy rights, publicity rights, copyrights, contract rights or any other rights of any person

You agree to waive any moral rights in your Material for the purposes of its posting on Boards.ie and the purposes specified above.

What does all that mean for the poster? If someone wrote a short story on the writing forum do boards.ie now own that after the 21st?
7.1 Submissions to Boards.ie

You do not have to submit anything to us, but if you do you acknowledge and agree that any questions, comments, suggestions, ideas, feedback, or any other submissions to us which may improve our products, services, or offerings shall become our sole property unless otherwise agreed by us.
By making a submission to us, you grant a nonexclusive, irrevocable, worldwide, perpetual, unlimited, assignable, sublicenseable, fully paid up and royalty free right to us to copy, prepare derivative works from, improve, distribute, publish, remove, retain, add, and use and commercialise, in any way now known or in the future discovered, anything that you submit to us, without any further consent, notice and/or compensation to you or to any third parties.
If you do not want to grant us the rights set out above, please do not make submissions to us.


What does that part mean? If I wrote you some fancy code to speed up the site, it becomes your sole property if you desire?


Should this discussion itself not merit a site wide announcement?

I will get absolute clarification on this for you, but basically:

What you put up is your responsibility and your (copyrighted) content.

We may ask you for permission to reproduce your work (in a presentation, for example) but we don't have to pay you for it. Basically you've chosen to put it on the site so we may decide to use it. That does NOT mean we will do this - we will always endeavour to ask permission.

You will not put anything up on Boards.ie that you say is yours but is not.

If you suggest something to help the site and you publish it and you say "here, I made this for you", don't come to us saying "give me money for it". If you want to do that, make it clear from the start. However, if you suggest something and we take it, we're under no obligation to pay you for it.

(though we probably will, anyways, if it's good enough)

Any clearer?

Darragh

jhegarty wrote: »

How does one know someone is under 18 ?

You agree NOT to use Boards.ie to:
* solicit personal information from anyone under 18

Wouldn't any public poll asking a personal question fall foul of this.

Good point, thanks. Perhaps saying "intentionally solicit personal information..." might be a better way of saying that.

modify, adapt, translate, or reverse engineer any portion of Boards.ie, or use any robot, spider, site search/retrieval application, or other device to retrieve or index any portion of Boards.ie, except as expressly authorised in writing by Boards.ie

Shouldn't you updated the robots.txt as it allows most of those things ?[/quote]

Erm, I dunno. I'll ask the question. Thanks!

Darragh

ynotdu wrote: »

What is the reason that an account cannot be closed?
I understand that to delete posts from threads would make any replys to a question etc seem ridiculous,so a persons posts would have to remain up to the date they wished to delete their account,but after that why not allow people to totally leave?{cynical thought would be that having x amount of subscribers is a good selling point for Ad's}

Okay, sorry it's taken me so long to respond to this one. It's a genuinely important point.

When I joined Boards.ie, I asked exactly the same question. I understand the point about posts and all of that thing and, well, between one thing and the other, it fell to the wayside until now.

On 23 November I asked for a slight change to our Contact Us page, knowing that the TOU was coming down the line.

So, members will be allowed to close their accounts. We just won't be deleting them ( the distinction there is important).

From my proposed text change:

Closing your account will not mean your posts are deleted. Boards.ie does not delete posts. Your PMs will be turned off and your subscriptions to threads erased.


To close your account, please send an email to hello@boards.ie from the email address you registered your account to, and allow 5 working days for your request to be processed.

This should allow us to keep threads intact and ensure that when someone emails us from their account, they are the owner.

We'll probably have a usergroup with a greyed out avatar showing that that poster no longer wishes to be active.

Just FYI - subscribers means very little to advertisers - it's all about the unique visitors and the page views these days - http://www.irelandmetrix.com

Also why keep infractions on record well past the 'offense'especially for new users while they learn the ethos of the site and the diffrient rules across forums.?
Surely keeping these infractions forever is bound to influence Admins/Mods decisions even when members have learned what is acceptable on boards and what is not{often a post is just borderline as to wether it is a rule-breaker or not}

Often times new users have come to boards from more 'crude' sites and it takes time to adjust.

This is a good point and one I'll raise with the Admins.

Darragh

Jay P wrote: »

From the terms of use:

post Material that infringes any patent, trademark, trade secret, copyright, rights of privacy or publicity, or other proprietary right of any party

Surely that could include many videos on Youtube? Namely user uploaded content such as live shows and album rips. Or does this not count because it's a 3rd party site?

Nope, we're sorted because YouTube takes that for us. If they allow it, we're just allowing what they've already allowed, if you get me.

About the user names:

# Contains any profanity, is vulgar or offensive, or promotes an illegal activity;
# Violates any trademark or other proprietary right; or
# Misleadingly impersonates someone else.

Is this rule going to be implemented across the board? Old users included? I can think of a good few examples of each.

That will be up to the Admins, as far as I can see it. What do you think should happen?

Darragh

Alan Rouge wrote: »

You could have at least been honest and said that it's to protect Boards Ltd. not the users. This kind of talk of protecting (or "serving") the individual person is similar to the rhetoric you hear from businesses.

In one sense though Alan, it's important to realise that we ARE a business, and as such, the laws that apply to businesses apply to us. Now, it would be lovely if I could take every solicitor letter and say "ah, see, now, that wasn't US posting it, that was this member" and just send it down the line that way. But I can't. They come in to me and I have to deal with them, and ultimately, it's my job on the line if I have been lax about sorting it/

We are protecting the users, because the users is the site. Company is not much good without all the members now, is it?

Are these threats from anon users with 10posts that had just joined that week and can't string a sentence together without txt spk or are they genuine credible "threats" made in an official manner? Isn't there a big difference between "threatening" legal action and actually suing someone?

These are genuine "We have been hired by company (or on the rare occasion person) x to address this case of libel/defamation or whatever that exists on your website" letters. It's important we deal with them appropriately and quickly.

There is of course a big difference between threats and taking action.

Darragh

ynotdu wrote: »

Do i not speak English?
The fact that a poster who wants to leave is not possible is NOT acceptable for a site that discusses Democracy so often.

Any fool can realise that deleting their posts before they decide to leave would just make a nonsense of forums where their questions or posts would be deleted.

So a simple Question:Why cant a member Totally leave?with the provisor that their previous posts remain but they cannot post any further and their user name has ex-member under the posts left behind?

It surely does not take a Lawyer to answer that:mad:

I'm not a lawyer, but let me ask you a question to answer yours/

What would you consider to be "totally leaving" Boards.ie?

If you come back to me with that, I'll get the official answer for you

Darragh

parsi wrote: »

It's becoming clear that the focus of Boards has changed from a community-based, somewhat eclectic site to a monetised site that caters mainly to whatever the current fad is (I won't dignify it with the term zeitgeist).

If that is what it has to be then that's grand. If the site needs large numbers of users even if they are one-trick ponies then grand. If the site wants control over posting and the ability to publicise posts then that's grand.

However if that's what the site wants then please junk this false claim that the site is a community where folk engage in rational debate rather than constant bashing of whatever sector is deemed by the Indo to be the current scapegoat.

Can I ask though - is this something that the people who are "running" the platform have control over? Is there a way the people in the office here or the admins or the moderators can sort this out?

parsi

It is.

Ranting & Raving isn't allowed in the Soccer Forum - it's not open to one-trick ponies who sign up to spew the same auld rubbish time and time again.

The Broadband forum had a "three" mega-thread rather than littering itself with multiple threads moaning about Three.

These are examples of approaches taken to effectively combat multiple "same-old same-old" circular threads.

Darragh

parsi wrote: »

It is.

Ranting & Raving isn't allowed in the Soccer Forum - it's not open to one-trick ponies who sign up to spew the same auld rubbish time and time again.

The Broadband forum had a "three" mega-thread rather than littering itself with multiple threads moaning about Three.

These are examples of approaches taken to effectively combat multiple "same-old same-old" circular threads.

Okay, thank you. So where should we be implementing similar measures throughout the site? Can you give me specific examples? The more detailed you can be, the better I can help get this done.

Red Sleeping Beauty

Darragh wrote: »

In one sense though Alan, it's important to realise that we ARE a business, and as such, the laws that apply to businesses apply to us. Now, it would be lovely if I could take every solicitor letter and say "ah, see, now, that wasn't US posting it, that was this member" and just send it down the line that way. But I can't. They come in to me and I have to deal with them, and ultimately, it's my job on the line if I have been lax about sorting it/

We are protecting the users, because the users is the site. Company is not much good without all the members now, is it?

Of course it's a business but it's just that your initial approach to this was along the lines of a kinda David Brent spiel. (No offence )
I can't imagine many people like being pandered to like that, unless they've some sort of fetish! Though as Wibbs said, most could probably care less about this stuff.

Parsi made a great point there about this "community of level headed rational discussion". I would've thought however that you'd need a rational topic before you can have rational discusison in some cases but anyways point well made in any event.



PS. does this thread count for discussion from Adverts.ie users or will the Support forum there be getting a similar thread?

parsi

Darragh wrote: »

Okay, thank you. So where should we be implementing similar measures throughout the site? Can you give me specific examples? The more detailed you can be, the better I can help get this done.

The Irish Economy forum could do with a bit of thread merging - for example.A lot of the threads end up going down the same route.

Darragh

parsi wrote: »

The Irish Economy forum could do with a bit of thread merging - for example.A lot of the threads end up going down the same route.

Okay - have you suggested this to the Forum mods at all? Would you like me to? If you can provide links to those ones that could be merged, I can ask the question.

Mightn't be a bad idea to have a "Feedback for this forum" thread in each forum that the mods can check into. Hmmmm.

Darragh

Red Sleeping Beauty wrote: »

Of course it's a business but it's just that your initial approach to this was along the lines of a kinda David Brent spiel. (No offence )

Flip. I hate that. Okay, may go edit it so. Thanks

I can't imagine many people like being pandered to like that, unless they've some sort of fetish! Though as Wibbs said, most could probably care less about this stuff.

Point taken.

PS. does this thread count for discussion from Adverts.ie users or will the Support forum there be getting a similar thread?

It counts. The way it is, we'll be putting the TOU live and allowing people to comment on them for draft 2. We have to start somewhere. This has been very helpful for a number of reasons.

Spear

On the usernames part:

Usernames

You may not select or use a username that:

* Contains “Boards” or otherwise misrepresents your relationship with Boards.ie or any other party;
* Contains any profanity, is vulgar or offensive, or promotes an illegal activity;
* Violates any trademark or other proprietary right; or
* Misleadingly impersonates someone else.

We reserve the rights to change usernames at our discretion.

How tightly will this be enforced? As it stands a very large number of usernames would be changed, potentially including users such as Dr.Bollocko, Ads by Google, Beruthiel, Karl Hungus, Jakass etc etc. if this were to be strictly implemented.

DonkeyStyle \o/

Darragh wrote: »

What would you consider to be "totally leaving" Boards.ie?

User account becomes un-login-able and unrecoverable (so we're not forever liable for losses incurred by boards.ie if someone someday guesses the password of our dis-used account (or the email account used to register it)), disappears from user list, personal data removed (aside from IP), and after a grace period (6-months? 1 year?) - all posts are detached from their original username and a single 'unregistered' user is assigned as the author/owner.

If Boards issue is that it wants to keep the content, that's fine, but I think there's a privacy issue in someone making thousands of posts and having them live forever on the internet under one username... maybe in ways we don't even understand yet.
People are getting fired over little things they've posted on facebook, I think there needs to be a better answer here than what amounts to "tough shít, we own it".

Dav

It's not so much a case of "tough shít, we own it" as you say it's more "think twice about what you write, it might come back to haunt you." As mentioned, people are finding themselves in trouble for things they've posted on Facebook etc, but ultimately, if I say something like "my boss is a muppet" (and the gods know I've spouted some amount of tripe over the last 10 years on this site!) and that post gets me into hot water, it's not the website's fault that I didn't think my actions through properly and I don't see why they should enable me to continue posting that sort of nonsense by allowing me to just run away from my own past opinions and have them disappear.

I fundamentally disagree with detaching posts from usernames and merging all old posts into one account, I think it would kill a lot of what Boards is about which is "people talking about stuff." I think it's important that more than just the "stuff" is remembered, I want the people to be too. If people say things in the public doman and there's a record of it, then that record should be held intact.

Dav

parsi

Darragh wrote: »

Okay - have you suggested this to the Forum mods at all? Would you like me to? If you can provide links to those ones that could be merged, I can ask the question.

I've a feeling that someone suggested it but can't quite recall.

darragh wrote:

Mightn't be a bad idea to have a "Feedback for this forum" thread in each forum that the mods can check into. Hmmmm.

Now that's a good idea. At the very least it might help to ensure that the feedback is from regular forum visitors rather than those who wander into the main Ffeedback forum just for voyeuristic reasons. It would also reduce the perception that someone is going for the nuclear option by taking their query/issue to the Feedback forum.

ynotdu

Darragh wrote: »

I'm not a lawyer, but let me ask you a question to answer yours/

What would you consider to be "totally leaving" Boards.ie?

If you come back to me with that, I'll get the official answer for you

Cant really answer that one Darragh,I dont think i could cope with the withdrawl of leaving boards!:D
Thank You for the clarifications,much appreciated!(ya sure have been earning yar crust on this thread!:))

slight aside:The obvious Happy Christmas to ALL.
I found Boards an excellant source to help Me get my head around both Lisbon and NAMA,and everybody got a fair crack of the whip!
Really refreshing to have an alternative to the other media!
Big thank You to the posters on both that had a grip on it and explained it so well:)
Thank You to the IT guys who solved the search problems!
even a thank You to Devores 'exit' poll on Lisbon(despite the fact that it was not within the 'margin of error'+ or - 3%:pac::pac::))

Cheers!

DeVore

It was close enough


As we head into our second decade, we are becoming (and should become) something of a historical record. We should do what we can to preserve that imho... hence the 48-hour-edit rule so that people cant go back and "whitewash" history.

I think thats an important part of Boards.

DeV.

ynotdu

DeVore wrote: »

It was close enough


As we head into our second decade, we are becoming (and should become) something of a historical record. We should do what we can to preserve that imho... hence the 48-hour-edit rule so that people cant go back and "whitewash" history.

I think thats an important part of Boards.

DeV.

I totally agree Almighty one:p
since nobody writes letters anymore historical events will not have the written documents for historians into the future:(

only thing about the 48 hour rule is I could not change a mistake in the Space&Astronomy forum i made,They hung draw and quartered Me:D

Such Bitch,s!!!!!!:)

Terms of Use links don't work on the notice.