Who Owns this Forum?

[dasilvarsa]

Question to Admin Same as title ?

[F.Viljoen]

Since the creation of this forum, it belonged to the registered forum members.
But if you got something to say that we must know, please speak up now or forever hold your tongue. **********************

Edited to remove wording that is disrespectful.
Metro Nomad
2012/08/11 11:48

[dasilvarsa]

I was looking for one of the Admins to answer. You are not a member of Admins.
There's no need to be disrespectful.
Admins I hereby lodge a complaint against F. Viljoen for being disrespectful.

[fugglefeet]

Hi Joe,

Can I ask you to be a bit more specific with respect to your question? Different aspects of the forum are owned by different individuals and/or organizations.

Darryl

[dasilvarsa]

Basically I'm thinking about "Legal Liability"
As you probably know lately the Internet has been a melting pot of Legal Action against Websites for various reasons.

Say that during our discussions on the Forum we were to discredit "bad mouth" a certain Mapping Software or a certain Brand. "this can happen" !
Say the Company Marketing that product lost a big contract because the decision maker took input from the Forum !
If they decide to take legal action, who will that legal action be directed against ?

When the Forum was being hosted by the previous host, if such a thing happened they would take action against the previous host.

Another scenario, Say someone wanted to make a donation to the forum. What "non profit organization" would get the donation.

There are many scenarios .....................

[Metro Nomad]

On the other forum we had a topic about Derogatory Comments and I plan to post something similar here as a reference.
I've also posted, elsewhere, about a court case where the forum owner as well as the poster were held responsible for certain comments.

We've received some flak in the past about being so strict on that, but I'll rather take flak from people who don't now better, than stand in court.

Our Disclaimer also refers to the fact that should a poster post anything that is not his/her own work the onus is on the member/poster to allude to where the information was obtained from by providing a link.
(I always include a link to the original article when posting a news item, for instance.)
I've often seen advice given on a certain forum where Shorty and I have been quoted verbatim, without even acknowledging where the info was obtained from.
Few of the regulars there were part of the previous forum and it was so easy for this person to build up a reputation for his expert knowledge, according to the accolades that he received.

Jokes are not copyrighted, so you won't have any problems there.
One should be careful about the contents of jokes, however, as people are sensitive to the issues that I listed on the index page.
One thing that also shouldn't be allowed is Brand Bashing and I've seen quite a few websites where this is strictly prohibited.

The aim should be to run this forum in a friendly atmosphere, give and receive advice in a good-natured way and give credit where it is due.

Not sure if these ramblings address some of your concerns...

[fugglefeet]

Hi all,

To further allude to what Metro Nomad has mentioned in his post. When the users sign up on a forum, they agree to abide by certain conditions with respect to the conduct that is to be maintained while being a member. As set out in the Terms of Use (para.3, the 1st sentence), any contravention of the condition can and/or will result in legal action being taken against the forum, forum owners and the member/s who had published the article/s. The severity of the legal action will be determined by the extent of the damage done by the comments made in the posts on the forum. Hence there are forum moderators tasked with the privilege of ensuring that the decorum among the members is maintained. So, the forum are not going to get petty about the "Van fell in the mud" jokes, but violation of the Terms of Use will require for a precedent to be set with respect to any members found doing such. The last thing that is needed or wanted by all of the forum members, is for them to be involved with legal proceedings, as a result of the forum not taking the necessary steps in upholding the Terms of Use. With respect to legal proceedings, I personally think that this forum has already had their fare share of such in the past 3 days since Wednesday, and do not deserve to have endure the stress of such again (this being due to a technical oversight that had serious repercussions involving copyright violations). A Whois of http://www.gps-users-forum.co.za will reveal that I am the registrant of the web address. That however does not automatically make me the owner, but it is not necessarily the case in the eyes of the law, as I have also been listed the registrant of other web addresses (for other companies) and can be perceived as the owner of their web sites.

With respect donations to non-profit organisations, if a member of the forum is aware of a company wanting to make a donation to such, the forumites can discuss this and decide which non-profit organisation should receive the donation. For example Metro Nomad works for ABC Ltd. and ABC Ltd. want to donate money to the forum. The forum can in turn decide if they want to donate the money to a non-profit entity or use it for the advancement of the forum. That is the forum's decision.

Any more questions?

Darryl

P.S. In setting up this forum, I diligently appointed pezulu, Jan Horn and Metro Nomad to the task of Administrators/Moderators. This is due to the fact that they are experienced in this field and have already helped me avoid key mistakes that I would have made otherwise. I could have on the other hand hoofed them off the forum and gone on my own. The simple thing we forget is that we have two ears and one mouth. So listen before you speak. A simple but effective philosophy.

[F.Viljoen]

I was looking for one of the Admins to answer. You are not a member of Admins.
There's no need to be disrespectful.
Admins I hereby lodge a complaint against F. Viljoen for being disrespectful.

@Joe.
I am sorry for what I said, it was out in the heat of the moment, as I was thinking what you said about me in the old forum when you were not happy with my comments.
So I think we are even now. Let bygones be bygones.

Cheers.

[fugglefeet]

I was looking for one of the Admins to answer. You are not a member of Admins.
There's no need to be disrespectful.
Admins I hereby lodge a complaint against F. Viljoen for being disrespectful.

@Joe.
I am sorry for what I said, it was out in the heat of the moment, as I was thinking what you said about me in the old forum when you were not happy with my comments.
So I think we are even now. Let bygones be bygones.

Cheers.

Frans



Dankie