US Hawks Hang Gliding Association

Recommended Topic for Discussion: Terms of Service
The Register button is where I rediscovered the Terms of Service.
In the interest of brevity I have left out the definitions and only did a copy/paste of the terms of service that came with the software.

“You agree not to post any abusive, obscene, vulgar, slanderous, hateful, threatening, sexually-orientated or any other material that may violate any laws be it of your country, the country where “US Hawks Hang Gliding Association” is hosted or International Law. Doing so may lead to you being immediately and permanently banned, with notification of your Internet Service Provider if deemed required by us. The IP address of all posts are recorded to aid in enforcing these conditions. You agree that “US Hawks Hang Gliding Association” have the right to remove, edit, move or close any topic at any time should we see fit. As a user you agree to any information you have entered to being stored in a database. While this information will not be disclosed to any third party without your consent, neither “US Hawks Hang Gliding Association” nor phpBB shall be held responsible for any hacking attempt that may lead to the data being compromised.”
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Should the Trial Board (TB) decide to place these rules on the table for discussion I would suggest that we go through it sentence by sentence.

The people creating this software, I would expect, settled on these rules out of basic necessity gleaned from past experience and or through common sense.

Care should be taken if any modification is made so as to not shoot ourselves in the foot by opening any future liability doors that the Boiler Plate rules had previously anticipated.

If and when we take up this subject and I’m thinking at a minimum we would have to at least ratify them as they stand or what changes if any can the TB see as necessary modifications?

First sentence of the Rules, Terms of Service:

“You agree not to post any abusive, obscene, vulgar, slanderous, hateful, threatening, sexually-orientated or any other material that may violate any laws be it of your country, the country where “US Hawks Hang Gliding Association” is hosted or International Law.”

Excellent Topic Bill!!! I think your post puts it on the table ... as it should be.   

I agree with your assessment that the TOS were probably arrived at through the "school of hard knocks" and we don't want to sit through that class again ourselves.

I also think that because of any potential legal issues, we should incorporate the US Hawks before we get too brave about changing anything in the legal department. Otherwise it's my neck in the noose, and I've had enough courtroom drama these past few months to last me the rest of my life!!

So this topic should focus on what we would like to have for our Terms of Service with the understanding that they may have to wait until incorporation to actually be implemented.

OK, now that that's off my chest ... on to sentence number 1:

1. abusive
2. obscene
3. vulgar
4. slanderous
5. hateful
6. threatening
7. sexually-orientated
8. any other material that may violate any laws be it of your country, the country where “US Hawks Hang Gliding Association” is hosted or International Law

I think that's a pretty good list. Of course, the devil is in the details.

What does everyone else think?
Did they leave anything out?
Is there anything there that anyone thinks we should allow?

Great work BillC.

I think it is a good list.

1. abusive
2. obscene
3. vulgar
4. slanderous
5. hateful
6. threatening
7. sexually-orientated
8. any other material that may violate any laws be it of your country, ……..the country where “US Hawks Hang Gliding Association” is ……..hosted or International Law.
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Re: Terms of Service Discussion

Postby bobk» Tue Feb 17, 2015 7:43 pm

I think that's a pretty good list. Of course, the devil is in the details.

What does everyone else think?
Did they leave anything out?
Is there anything there that anyone thinks we should allow?
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Re: Terms of Service Discussion
Postby SamKellner » Wed Feb 18, 2015 5:20 am
Great work BillC.

I think it is a good list.
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Terms of Service Discussion
Postby billcummings

Members of the trial board (TB),
I have been exposed to some extremely talented people that with unbelievable ease have in effect taken the English language hostage. This was accomplished simply by alluding to subjects considered inappropriate contained in the first eight points.

One individual’s talent had me publicly declaring this person to be, “The King of Innuendo.” This individual never actually made a statement that you could pin his lips to the wall in a court room yet it was obvious to every reader that the victim had just been skewered with most all the eight point found in the US Hawks ToS.

Sam may be correct that the list is complete enough on what the US Hawks considers inappropriate speech on the forum.

I for one would not care to see any removed or added to but maybe defined in greater detail.

The future elected board members might not appreciate showing up for a engagement of wits to find they are insufficiently equipped.

However it could be that being too specific with rules might only better define the path for talented silvery tongued individuals.

Any thoughts as to whether:
1) It’s a good list as it is.
2) The list needs added to.
3) The list needs to have something removed.
4) The points need to be better defined.
5) Another idea.

This could be a complicated topic and it might take continual fine-tuning that never really ends.

However, in the spirit of both continuity and expediency, I move that we adopt the terms of service as they stand. If anyone would like to second my motion, then we can call for a vote.

Note that we can change them at any point in the future, but ratifying them now gives us a starting point to work from.

bobk wrote:This could be a complicated topic and it might take continual fine-tuning that never really ends.

However, in the spirit of both continuity and expediency, I move that we adopt the terms of service as they stand. If anyone would like to second my motion, then we can call for a vote.

Note that we can change them at any point in the future, but ratifying them now gives us a starting point to work from.

Scott had mentioned that we should designate a certain time for a board meeting since as I recall he had some other irons in the fire. As for myself I’ll wait for Joe and Scott to check in to see if either has more input on the topic.
LAST GUY CHECKING IN HAS TO SECOND THE MOTION.

I will second Bob's motion.

But I'll also throw a wrench into the works. The Terms of Service Agreement could include a "Copyright" clause. Legally, that would allow someone who "copied" forum content somewhere else (without first securing permission to do so) to be sued for Copyright Infringement. I could research how other forum sites implement that sort of thing.

S C Wise

bobk wrote:This could be a complicated topic and it might take continual fine-tuning that never really ends.

However, in the spirit of both continuity and expediency, I move that we adopt the terms of service as they stand. If anyone would like to second my motion, then we can call for a vote.

Note that we can change them at any point in the future, but ratifying them now gives us a starting point to work from.

billcummings wrote: . . . LAST GUY CHECKING IN HAS TO SECOND THE MOTION.

OOOOps! I wasn't the last guy to check in.

Where are you Joe?

PS - I think my idea of regular Meeting times could probably be quite helpful. We would just have to agree to a day (or days) and a time. I should probably post that issue as a separate discussion topic.

wingspan33 wrote:

billcummings wrote: . . . LAST GUY CHECKING IN HAS TO SECOND THE MOTION.

OOOOps! I wasn't the last guy to check in.

Welllllll....

If we have to have 100% participation to get a second, that would give any one person veto power by just not checking in. A "second" is usually just a way of ensuring that an idea isn't sooooo far out that it should be dismissed without any consideration. A second just says that it's good enough to have a vote.

Now the vote is another matter. We've played around with different voting ideas, but to keep things simple I think we should just seek a majority of our members. With 5 of us, that would be 3. So if 3 agree, then it passes ... whether the 4th or 5th are present or not.

And that brings up quorums. I believe that a quorum is a minimum number to make a meaningful vote. So if an association had 100 members, they might set a quorum of 25. That means that 25 would have to be present to "conduct businesss". If a meeting had the required 25, then a vote of 13 to 12 would pass which is only 13% of the total. That's far less than a majority of the members, but that's done on the expectation that it would be difficult to get 51 people out of 100 to attend a meeting and vote. So they select a smaller quorum and then a majority of that quorum can make decisions.

In our case - with only 5 of us - if we start trying to choose a quorum less than that 5 we start to get down to some pretty small numbers being able to call the shots. So I think that 3 in favor of any decision is a majority regardless of whether the other 2 are attending or not.

Having said all of that, it's certainly good to have everyone weigh in because anyone may have ideas that would sway the 3 who might vote otherwise without that extra input. So even if we have 3 in favor of something, it's good to allow a bit of time for everyone to digest it. On the other hand, if 3 are in agreement, then they shouldn't have to wait too long to move forward ... especially since people may not check in for some time.

wingspan33 wrote:PS - I think my idea of regular Meeting times could probably be quite helpful. We would just have to agree to a day (or days) and a time. I should probably post that issue as a separate discussion topic.

Maybe this is the key problem. Operating on line gives the convenience of taking our own time, but maybe that's a problem as well. Let's see how this vote goes and then recalibrate.

Your advice on a quorum is well received by me.

The opening of the Terms of Service Discussion suggested either a ratification of the first sentence or possible changes to the eight points of agreement as a condition of US Hawks membership

I see a motion on the --- screen by bobk, --

--I move that we adopt the terms of service as they stand. If anyone would like to second my motion, then we can call for a vote.

The wording of your motion could be later interpreted as the board ratifying even the penalty phase without benefit of discussion or possible modification.