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[Splinter]

Another forum I'm on is for expats living in BA.
I was banned from there at the time I joined here, for questioning the T&C's.
Managed to sneak back in under another name even though they also keep a record of the IP of those banned. They may have had a change of heart.
I use the forum as it's a very useful tool for getting to know other expats and also to bring them to my shop.
Recently they've started to delete posts and I know for a fact that they read PM's.
I know it's only an effing forum, but it's dammed annoying this sort of behaviour, especially when it's such a good resource, beyond the bitching.
I'm really tempted to now question the modus operandi.

[corroded]

Welcome to Internet.

High surveillance, or techno hippies... and everything in between. The old adage being, if you don't like it, go somewhere else. Unfortunately. They pay for it, their rules.

[Centurion]

Reading your PM's is a bit low.....

[Splinter]

Point taken Corroded, but toeing the line and abiding by the rule of 'don't question our rules or you will be banned forever' is draconian to say the very least.
I'm not sweating it over this one, especially as I'll probably be banned again anyway at some point. It just irks.
I know this Wank forum has certain rules and regs, but at least we are not banned for questioning them, regardless of who pays the maintenance and runs it.

Yes Cent, reading PM's is low. But I know they do this.
I'm going for a beer. Tired of my own thread already 

[Wooster]

Reading PM's is low..iirc the only way they could do it is to change a users password so they can log in under their credentials...but how would they know what the old one is to change it back?

[Splinter]

No idea mate.
I know messages are filtered by content/keywords/urls etc
So if you post a message with a url that they may have preflagged, it's not submitted until a mod approves it.

[Splinter]

I should have read this before.
It's laughable..

1. .org users will be assumed to have read and agreed to these Terms of Service and, by occasional rereading of them, to be aware of changes and updates to the Terms of Service.
2. Only users who have registered with full registration data including real name and a valid e-mail address are permitted in .org community areas. Failure to register, or registration with false information is grounds for immediate blocking of access. Additionally, it is the member's responsibility to update and maintain a valid email address with their membership.

3. You will not use .org community areas for any unlawful purpose.

4. .org does not endorse, and specifically disclaims any responsibility or liability for, any content on any message board or blog, in any chat room, on any Web page, or on any other content on .org site.

5. You will not ask users for the phone number, physical, email or instant message or other identifying information of a third party that is not present, nor provide such information if asked. Both the one asking for such information and the one supplying it will be viewed as violating this rule.

6. By contributing or submitting any content to the .org, the user states that he or she is the author and owner of the intellectual property rights, and grants .org and its assigned agents a worldwide, perpetual, irrevocable, royalty-free, transferable right and license to use, copy, modify, delete in its entirety, adapt, publish, translate, create derivative works from and/or sell and/or distribute such materials and/or incorporate such materials into any form, medium or technology without compensation to the author.

7. We reserve the right to read and monitor notes sent on .org between users. We do this to protect the website from potential security threats, unauthorized advertising or spamming. Notes are not considered the private property of the sender or recipient of the messages. The Notes system is a free service to community members. If a member's account is disabled they will not be able to retrieve any saved notes.

8. You agree to indemnify and hold harmless .org and its members, and defend .org and its members at your expense for any and all claims, actions, and proceedings, including attorney's fees, arising from your use of .org services.

9. These Terms of Service will be governed by and construed in accordance with the laws of the State of Texas, without giving effect to its conflict of laws provisions or your actual state or country of residence. If for any reason a court of competent jurisdiction finds any provision or portion of the Terms of Service to be unenforceable, the remainder of the Terms of Service will continue in full force and effect.

10. .org reserves the right to:

move any discussion in community areas to a different folder or room for any reason at our sole discretion;
edit any discussion, post, or chat room title for any reason at our sole discretion;
to bar, restrict, block any user for any reason as well as remove any content at our sole discretion;
to revise the Terms of Service at any time, at its sole discretion, and without prior notice.
11. No fragmentation provision. Without an explicit permission of .org, you are not allowed to advertise other expat groups (whether formal or not) that conduct regular activities. This is an advertisement only restriction and does not affect your freedom of association or your other individual rights. If you would like to organize a ***** event please contact the webteam.

12. We are open for suggestions, however any questions about this site operations should be addressed to the webteam directly by sending an email to webteam.org. Questioning any aspect that is outlined in these Terms of Service in any other way will be regarded as disagreement with the Terms of Service and result in termination of your account.

[Thermalsig]

SHiiiiiiiiiit! Start your own forum. If it's fair and balanced, they will fill it up soon.

[Splinter]

Found this:
http://www.smfforfree.com/

Still trying to figure out if it is actually free.

[Kryten]

Found this:
http://www.smfforfree.com/

Still trying to figure out if it is actually free.

http://www.freeforum101.com/

or

http://www.freeforums.org/

[Splinter]

 

[keasy]

Use our spare database for a bit.

Woost, Therm or myself will set you up.

Once you hit enough traffic you can migrate (so you're not leeching our bandwidth to break point).

It would be under my registered domain though which is woostyandkeas.com. You could even pay for a cheap redirect and then call it what ever you want that way.

[Splinter]

Use our spare database for a bit.

Woost, Therm or myself will set you up.

Once you hit enough traffic you can migrate (so you're not leeching our bandwidth to break point).

It would be under my registered domain though which is woostyandkeas.com. You could even pay for a cheap redirect and then call it what ever you want that way.

Thanks Keasy!
Would that be using the Simple Machines model? It does seem the best I have seen so far.
I have yet to think of a name, but I'm working on it.

[keasy]

SMF yes.

[keasy]

Well seems Woost is planning on a DB migration for the switch to SMF 2.x  so we need the spare DB atm.

After that providing it all goes smooth enough and an initial settling period then fair do's. The offer still stands.

We would need to have admin on the forums in order to provide us with means of anti spam implementation etc.