Forum Rules Revised 8-24-2005

[Bob Hubbard]

Due to concerns with privacy we have revised our listed policies as follows.



Revised 8/24/2005

Personal Privacy Policy Revised


• SECURITY THREATS
You agree, through your use of this service, that you will not use this forum to engage in predatory behavior, stalking or to post any material which is threatening, invasive of a person's privacy, or otherwise in violation of any law.

• PERSONAL INFORMATION
Remember that the general public can view all public personal information in your user profile and posted messages. Before posting or editing your profile, make certain that you are posting information you want others to know. Anything you post will not be privileged or confidential nor will any replies to your postings. You may choose to deny other members the ability to send you e-mail via the forum by changing your e-mail settings in "UserCP". Also, when logging in you may choose to not appear on the active users list. Personal information from users is only what the user freely provides. Access to any personal information in our forum database is granted only to authorized administrators..

• PRIVACY OF OTHERS
Please do not post personal information about any person, even if that information is publicly available. You may post the public contact information for public figures or officials, but you may not post anyone's (including your own) private information. If you wish to share any personal information with another member, please do it by e-mail and it is entirely at your own discretion and risk.

• ABUSE OF E-MAIL AND PRIVATE MESSAGE SYSTEM
Members may not use their accounts here to spam other members, either via e-mail, private message, or any other messaging client. Posting the contents of an e-mail or private message without the sender's permission is not permitted. Abuse of the e-mail or private message system is considered a banning offense and we encourage members to report this type of activity to the moderating team or administrators.

• HARASSMENT / STALKING
Members may not harass other members. Harassing behavior directed towards an individual or group with the intent of creating an intimidating, offensive, or hostile environment on the boards, with or without use of explicit or implicit threats is strictly prohibited. Stalking is also not allowed. Stalking is defined here in part as constantly searching for a user, following them around from thread to thread and attempting to always be the next poster after them.

If anyone makes you feel uncomfortable, end the interaction and ignore them if they persist in trying to contact you. If they won't stop, if you are a teen, report them to your parents; if you are an adult, report them to the police. Law enforcement is taking Internet harassment, stalking, and exploitation very seriously and will take action. If you feel that another member is being pushy or putting you in an uncomfortable situation (such as pressing you into an email exchange or an IM session), please let our staff know and we will look into it and take action.

• SEXUAL HARASSMENT
Sexual harrassment, stalking and other related behavior will result in an automatic ban. Staff will ultimately decide if something is appropriate or not.

• PRIVATE MESSAGES / PROFILES
Forum administrators reserve the right to read or otherwise access your "private" information that resides on our server. This information includes your private messages (PM's) and private profile fields, is read at the administrations discretion, but only when a violation is reported to us (threatening or harassing PM for example), or when we have reason to. Although it is very rare, it does happen. Information found in the course of such actions is not released publically, though may be released to the proper authorities.



These Terms of Service are subject to change at any given point in time without any forewarning whatsoever. Thus, it is your duty to stay up-to-date with the content within. For the most part, we'll post an announcement that brings light to any and all updates within this Terms of Service, but it is not mandatory for us to do so, we merely do so out of general courtesy. Continued use of MartialTalk.com after a change has been made is your acceptance of the change.

 

[Bob Hubbard]

As I expected, this clause has caused some concern. A few comments sent to me privately are here to help clear the confusion.

• PRIVATE MESSAGES / PROFILES
Forum administrators reserve the right to read or otherwise access your "private" information that resides on our server. This information includes your private messages (PM's) and private profile fields, is read at the administrations discretion, but only when a violation is reported to us (threatening or harassing PM for example), or when we have reason to. Although it is very rare, it does happen. Information found in the course of such actions is not released publically, though may be released to the proper authorities.


"You shouldn't do that"

Let me highlight where and when we would do such things:
- When a member indicated they received a harassing message.
- When a member indicates they have a problem with the system.
- When we suspect a member of illegal activity.
- When required to do so by law.

We do not:
- Kick back and casually read through them.
- We do not monitor them in real-time.
- We do not publish, post, print or otherwise pass them along. The exception is if a copy is required by the proper authorities.

Simply put, every day MT processes thousands of PM's. 99.9% of them are of no concern. It's that .1% that when notified about, we must investigate that is of issue here.

"Well, how do you read them?"

For obvious security reasons, I cannot tell the exact method. It is not a feature built into the software. (There is an add-in, but I will not install that.) In order to read them, one needs 3 username/passwords, a knowledge of code and needs to know where they are.

"Who can read them?"
At the moment, me. There is no easy way to access them and making a mistake can crash the board.


I hope this clears up any concerns. If not, please feel free as always to comment.

Thank you. :asian:

 

[Bob Hubbard]

More questions:

"I received an PM that I feel is inappropriate. What do I do?"
DO NOT DELETE IT!
Forward a copy to us with your complaint. We will then investigate it. Once we complete our search, we will let you know our findings and if it is safe to delete then.

"I received an email that I feel is inappropriate. What do I do?"
Forward a copy on to adminteam@martialtalk.com with all the headers. We will then investigate it. Once we complete our search, we will let you know our findings.

"What are full-headers?"
Full headers are the gibberish that details every computer that has touched that message including where it was sent from. We can use these to determine the true sender of a message in many cases.

"How do I send full headers?"
For information on obtaining the full headers of an email, please see Spamcop. This site is a great tool that can help you find out who sent you an email, and more.

"Someone is harassing me on an Instant Messanger system. What do I do?"
Since such actions are in violation of most IM's terms of service, your best bet would be to contact them directly.