Users that ask to be deleted? US Law?

[MJM]

If one submits an 'article' to a publisher and it is accepted for publication, the publisher may retain extended rights on the permitted use of the publication.
When someone posts into a forum, they are in the same sense publishing their words in a public or private venue.
It is up to the forum owners discretion and it's TOS whether this info is to remain as a permanent record, can be used elsewhere, or deleted at the users request.
Generally it's in the admins best interest to accommodate a users request to remove some personal details, especially if it's in regard to technical support issues, and the users editing time limit has expired.
But complete deletion of content is at the descretion of owner/admin/mod.

[Mark.B]

My rules state that that all content posted remains the copyright of the poster, however by posting it the poster grants my site irrevocable consent to display the said content within the forums, as posted by the user.

The intention of this is that the author is free to go and post it anywhere else if he wishes or do whatever else he likes with it, as he is still the copyright holder in full. I, as the site owner, could not reproduce the content outside of my site without the consent of the poster. However once posted, it stays there unless we agree otherwise. Most requests for removal are declined.

This is essential on sites like mine that have things like poetry forums. Nobody would post their work if the copyright then transferred to me!

[MJM]

I agree with this Mark B.
Copyright of content is retained by the original authors.
What are your views about publishing forum content on other pages of your site, ie as a periodical, in a knowledgebase, or refined reformatting of a persons contributions?
I would think that this would be acceptable under this agreement, or course providing it was not out of context.

Needless to say, submittion of articles or interviews with newspaper/magazines/print and other media can often result in inaccuracies in the final publication which are not possible to correct after they have gone to print.

Web publications provide for much more flexibility if the editor is willing or cares to make any further edits.

[Floris]

You're speaking site management; not copyright matters.

You can manage your site/forum as you want; but not take content from a member and do as you please (e.g., publish it, sell it) without his/her consent. The post I quoted was to address how vague the statement was; so I corrected it.

I think you are right, I wasn't aware this thread was about reselling or re-using the content of an author of a post without concent. I thought it was about deleting the account of a member. Sorry for the confusion.

[MJM]

Deleting an account and also deleting/keeping/using content within an account are very much related.
In 5 years I've only had 1 account delete request.

In this situation, a member who had come over from yahoo groups email a reuest - Unsubscribe me.
I replied, you can do that from your CP/subscription options and you will not receive any further posts from the forum.
Technically the users account was not deleted, and had the user used the correct wording, I would have done so which would have changed the users account to Guest. This satisfied the user as I never heard back.
Removing posts was not requested. Just like at yahoo groups, you can unsubscribe from a group but your posts remain.

In another situation, a user joined, asked a question then immediately edited /deleted the post content, commenting .. delete me, that he had mistakenly joined the wrong forum.
But it was a great question (Title) which resulted in numerous interesting and helpful replies.
He never returned, account was deleted > post changed to guest, and the great question was rephrased in the post using our own wording.

[Mark.B]

I agree with this Mark B.
Copyright of content is retained by the original authors.
What are your views about publishing forum content on other pages of your site, ie as a periodical, in a knowledgebase, or refined reformatting of a persons contributions?
I would think that this would be acceptable under this agreement, or course providing it was not out of context.

My rules provide that we can reproduce the content elsewhere on the site. Often this happens automatically, such as with vBadvanced and MKPortal, both of which I run and both of which pull content from the forum database. Obviously we couldn't alter anything that was posted. I could, for example, create a "sample posts" page and stuff might appear on there. Or details of posts might go out in email newsletters. I don't do that at present, but I could if I wanted to.

I wouldn't want to rewrite anyone's post...I might quote bits from it but I wouldn't re-write it in any way.

If I was going to produce something "in print" taken from the forums, (not that I ever would or could financially) then I would consider that we had NOT covered that in our rules, certainly not morally, and thus if we planned to actually commit someone's post to paper and publish it, I'd want to seek the permission of the author first before doing so.

[Freesteyelz]

I think you are right, I wasn't aware this thread was about reselling or re-using the content of an author of a post without concent. I thought it was about deleting the account of a member. Sorry for the confusion.

The thread took a turn by the time I got to it so yes, you're right that I am right. The post I quoted was open-ended so anyone could have made an inference just as I pointed out. "Content" in the post I quoted could have meant anything.

As for the matter of U.S. law and deleting a member's forum account on a personal forum/site, it should not be an issue of legality; regardless of the TOS. I say "should" because if someone wants to make a legal issue of it, he/she can.

[MJM]

I would think that if deleting an account was potentially litigious that it would already be in the userCp options.

BTW there is a mod to Allow users to self-delete their account at vB.org for 3.5

Deleting an account is not so big a deal as is a user also wanting all their posts be deleted. This is a much bigger issue as it can affect the integrity of other postings etc at the forums.
The solution that vb provides, to change the deleted usernames' posts to Guest is about the best one can offer in these situations.

Perhaps here's another use for the Ignore feature.
Ignore self

[MJM]

Actually thinking about this a little more, I don't think I would want my account deleted and all posts returned to Guest status and lose all credit or traces of being the author if I had written a bunch of thought provoking poetry or contributed a lot of useful content.

On the other hand if my posts consisted pretty much of useless and regrettable gibberish it would be a relief to pass this on to a Guest

[chrispadfield]

My TOS (rules) has two relevant clauses for this discussion: accounts are not required to be removed upon request, and by registering, you agree to the current rules plus all future revisions.

It is very unlikely your 2nd rule would be valid in a court of law. You can not make someone sign an agreement that includes a clause that says I can change this agreement at any time, not tell you, and you still have to abide by it.

Seriously doubt it will ever affect you, but that clause is not worth the database space it is stored on