Here are the 4 Candidates: Proposal to be known in this discussion as: Bobs_01 Bobs_01 wrote:Doing so may lead to you being immediately and permanently banned, with notification of your Internet Service Provider if deemed required by the "US Hawks Hang Gliding Association". The IP addresses of all posts are recorded to aid in enforcing these conditions. You agree that the “US Hawks Hang Gliding Association” has the right to remove, move, or close any topic or post at any time should we see fit. You also agree that the US Hawks Hang Gliding Association has the right to modify the content of any post without requiring the poster's permission as long as the modification includes a clear announcement as to the scope and reason for the modification.
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 the “US Hawks Hang Gliding Association” nor phpBB shall be held responsible for any hacking attempt that may lead to the data being compromised.
Proposal to be known in this discussion as: Bills_01 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.
Addendum
NOTE “edit*”
The editing of posted content will only take place when a violation of (forum) rules take place. Such editing will be restricted to the removal of the message content considered to be in violation.
Exception to the edit rule: Spelling corrections beyond the editing time period will be permitted by the moderator with the permission of the person making the post. A moderators edit note will be included.
Addendum : Copyright complaints,
Start of Moderator's Note
The copyrighted material in the user's original post was removed
per US Hawks Board Decision (include a link to the decision).
End of Moderator's Note
Or similar note:
VIOLATING CONTENT HIDDEN
Any Questions, Please Contact the Moderator for Clarification
Proposal to be known in this discussion as: Bills_02 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.
Addendum
NOTE “edit*”
The editing of posted content will only take place when a violation of (forum) rules take place. Such editing will be restricted to the removal of the message content considered to be in violation.Addendum : Copyright complaints,
Start of Moderator's Note
The copyrighted material in the user's original post was removed
per US Hawks Board Decision (include a link to the decision).
End of Moderator's Note
Or similar note:
VIOLATING CONTENT HIDDEN
Any Questions, Please Contact the Moderator for Clarification
Proposal to be known in this discussion as: Bills_03 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.
Any information not marked as copyrighted is considered Fair Use.
Any information removed due to TOS and/or copyright violation will not be disclosed to any third party without your consent, neither the “US Hawks Hang Gliding Association” nor phpBB shall be held responsible for any hacking attempt that may lead to the data being compromised.
Addendum
NOTE “edit*”
The editing of posted content will only take place when a violation of forum rules take place. Such editing will be restricted to the removal of the message content considered to be in violation.
Exception to the edit rule: Spelling corrections beyond the editing time period will be permitted by the moderator with the permission of the person making the post. A moderators edit note will be included.
Addendum : Copyright complaints,
Start of Moderator's Note
The copyrighted material in the user's original post was removed
per US Hawks Board Decision (include a link to the decision).
End of Moderator's Note
Or similar note:
VIOLATING CONTENT HIDDEN
Any Questions, Please Contact the Moderator for Clarification
Here's my vote: Bobs_01 none_of_the_above Bills_03 = Bills_02 = Bills_01 Here's my disclaimer:I was initially considering
not voting because I recognize that my position as founder of the US Hawks and current forum operator can be interpreted as carrying more weight than the other Board Members. I don't want that to be the case, and so I thought about not voting because I didn't want to steer things one way or another. I'm also very hesitant to express an opinion that goes against anyone on this Board because I value each of you very much and I really don't want to offend anyone by disagreeing with them publicly.
Having said that, I realized that such a "non-participation" policy would rob the US Hawks of any good opinions that I might actually have (no laughing please). It would also set a precedent that we have to be afraid of offending people. We will never succeed with that limitation. So I decided that I
would vote, but I would vote later (as I have), and I would emphasize that I am just one member of this Board. So let me explicitly ask that my vote here not sway anyone beyond the value of my comments themselves. Thanks.
Here's my reasoning:I primarily chose Bobs_01 because it was the shortest and I also felt it was the clearest. I voted "none_of_the_above" as second choice because I just didn't like the asterisk/footnote on "edit" because it created a "detour" from the main text which I felt distracted from the original Terms of Service. I like the idea of giving examples, but I would rather have such examples be given in our Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) so we can relatively easily expand them and change them as time goes on. I don't think we should be changing our Terms of Service as often as we might need to change our SOPs.
I also didn't feel that the Fair Use or Spelling Corrections issues were appropriate for the Terms of Service. The Fair Use of anything on our site is already covered by existing law, and so I didn't feel the need to call it out in the TOS (although it might fit in our SOPs as a clarification). Similarly, I didn't feel the Spelling Correction issue belonged there because such corrections are "cooperative" in nature rather than "adversarial". Whether we like it or not, the Terms of Service - as a legal agreement - is somewhat adversarial. It's saying what we (the US Hawks) feel we need to be able to do to protect ourselves from a situation that goes awry. Imagine someone very disruptive on our forum with the resources to haul us into court for as long as they want (a situation that's become recently familiar to me). We want our TOS to protect us as clearly as possible. Opening a crack for "spelling corrections" opens a potential flood of issues ("I'm sorry, I misspelled 'nice guy' as 'jerk', could you correct it for me?"). Things work very well with reasonable people, and I don't think there have been any complaints from our reasonable members. But when people join with the intention to disrupt us (as I believe we've seen), then we're going to need to fall back on these Terms of Service to help us. They need to be both clear and in our favor.
I sincerely hope that my honest vote and criticism doesn't offend anyone to the point of quitting. If it does, then maybe that's telling me this would never have worked anyway. I sure hope for a better outcome!!!!
Thanks to everyone for participating, and a big thanks to Bill for pointing out the problem with leaving the word "edit" in the Terms of Service without any restrictions. You'll notice that
every candidate that was submitted contained more restrictions on editing than the original Terms of Service, and that would NOT have happened without your input Bill. So whether your specific proposals win or lose, you're input wins in any case because it was incorporated into EVERY proposal. Thanks very much for being such a positive influence on whatever we decide.
Thanks Bill!!!!!!