Question concerning legal issues form banning a user.

[chevy6772]

I hve a user whom I put a 24 hour ban on for his attitude and generally not playing well with others, in my opinion he was torlling as st forth by my rules. He is now threatening to file a lawsuit against me because I permanently banned him for emailing me rather argumentative over it all, instead of simply trying to resolve the issue. My question is this, has anyone ever heard of such a suit? This person claims he's had a forum shut down for banning him...

[ManagerJosh]

If you have sufficent proof on your board that he's been harassing others, then you're well within you're rights to ban him for however long you want

Also, he's lying. You can't shut down a forum on those merits. A webmaster can keep whomever he desires out of his community. A website is like its own country is much sense. You're the king, and you're welcome to do anything you want to. Whether your members like it or not, that's a different story.

[Scott MacVicar]

He sounds like someone who is just trying to call your bluff, its your resources that he's using. Just tell him that using your forum is not a right its a privledge, if he continues to abuse it then you'll remove it. Simple as that and its not open for discussion.

[Wattie]

one user threatened me with the European Cour of Human Rights for warning him - so I banned him!

[Arsenik]

one user threatened me with the European Cour of Human Rights for warning him - so I banned him!

Wattie the executioner!

[BillaBongUSA]

Now that is what I call ownage.

[DirectPixel]

I hve a user whom I put a 24 hour ban on for his attitude and generally not playing well with others, in my opinion he was torlling as st forth by my rules. He is now threatening to file a lawsuit against me because I permanently banned him for emailing me rather argumentative over it all, instead of simply trying to resolve the issue. My question is this, has anyone ever heard of such a suit? This person claims he's had a forum shut down for banning him...

Your forum is run by you, paid by you (or your affiliates), and on servers which you either have owned or leased.

No user has a fundamental right to use your website. Likewise, you have all the right in the world to determine who may or may not use your offerings.

Unless you have been harassing him (or anything else that may be fair game in a civil suit), he's got no case. At all.

Just make sure to save whatever emails/PM's you may have exchanged and print out a hard copy of those as well.

[PGN]

He's bluffing. A webmaster can do whatever they want. Heck, you have the right to ban whoever you want, even if it's for no reason!

[Christine]

Once had a user threaten to sue me because I refused to remove all of their posts after they were banned for attacking other members.

Said they were going to write a book and that their posts were therefore copyrighted because they wanted to use them later in publication.

I gently suggested that he contact the best lawyer he can find, tell them what he told me and have them contact me.

That was 2 years ago.

Nothing they can do, chevy.

As mentioned above -- Your site, your rules, your bandwidth, your server fees, etc etc etc.

Don't delete anything he posted/emailed, but in the same token, don't lose any sleep over it.

[Christine]

Oh, and if I may -- you are very kind.

Had I put someone on a 24 hour ban who then started threatening me, it would become a permanent ban without any questions asked.

[Onimua]

I delete things, but then again, I have frequent back-ups as well. So if anything, I can just go into those back-ups and pull out any needed information.

I've dealt with punks (best way I describe some of them, since the ages I deal with are around 14-16 years of age). It was rediculous, since I am administrator of two sites, and they frequented both. Then after I made some drastic but much needed changes, everyone got upset, and then the punks decided to lead an "army" and try to overthrow me and my staff, get me removed from my position, etc.

Two weeks later, they've "mysteriously" disappeared and very few actually still speak to them. No mention (and I refuse to) of exactly what happened to them.

[chevy6772]

Thanks everyone, that is what I thought. I've been threatened with numerous lawsuits over the past 7 yrs over my forums, but this one was a first and couldnt find any info/laws about it. I've had letters from "lawyers" that don't exist on any state bar etc. Even had one guy register adn pretend to be his daughter in order to "defend her dad"... I ussually laugh it off once I look into it. This guy threatened to sue me after I upped his original ban because he emailed me defensively using cuss words etc. then threatened lawsuit after that, at which point his ban became permanent.

[ManagerJosh]

Well, if he comes back to harass you or others, send him to "Coventry" using the Tachy goes to Coventry. He'll become a mime, and just let him talk to himself

[Floris]

I've learned that if you just ban someone and ignore whatever they do .. they for some reason do not sue you.

[Thunderfall]

Yup, your forum is like your own house. You can kick anyone out if you wish.

What I want to know is, has any of you reported big spammers to the spammer's local police department, FBI, or other law enforcement agencies? If yes, did they do anything to help?