I had a user who did some things on the forum (with a plugin) that other members thought was cheating. They then proceeded to nag him about it and call for him to be banned. This user then started deleting every post he had ever made on the forum (he's at 5000+). A mod then banned him. I logged on to all of this and a pm from the member stating that he would like all his posts removed. My mods and the few members that saw this going on thinks this is ridiculous and would make a lot of conversations seem inconsistent. My simple question to you is, who owns the content? If I say I do, then I'm liable for what someone else posts. If I say the member that posted it, then they are well within their rights to delete it. What's the status quo here on ownership on content?

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Have you read your privacy policy, user agreement, etc?

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If you don't have a privacy policy, make one! In situations like this, you can use it to cover your ass.

Depending on the posts, make sure all content is copyright to the forum. When it comes to art, graphics, and other material posted though, you may want to remove it. In my case, there is a lot of art and graphics posted on my forums. I have made sure to recognize that any art or graphics users posts are strictly the copyright of them, but as for written posts, that's another matter.

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Your TOS only states that you are not responsible for the user submitted content. It is a public forum, so the messages that are conveyed there are neither the property of their creator, or the owner of the forum, they were entered into the public domain, by will by it's creator, therefore, it is only up to you to decide whether or not the content of those posts are suitable for your forum, and to delete them as you see fit. The user who submitted the posts had to have understood the public domain aspect when he first began making the posts, therefore, he doesn't own the comments that he made, he is just responsible for creating them, same goes for you, you don't own them, you are only responsible for moderating them. So, with that said, ultimately it is up to you whether or not they stay or go, the user no longer has any rights to the posts because he has shown him/herself to be unworthy of even being a contributing part of the community. Did that make since? In other words, you have the say so, not him.

That's my opinion on the matter.

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You can try to strip his account of all personal identifyable information, effectively deleting him from your database. You can change the screen name to something else, too. but the content stays.

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Thanks for all the replies. So, if I keep the content and do not let him delete it, am I therefore responsible for what he says? Or am I still staying within the realm of a third-party provider?

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No, he is responsible for what he wrote, but you decide whether it stays or not, because it's your board.

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