invester
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Post by invester on May 29, 2018 10:42:06 GMT
If the forum staff all decided to down tools, why would you run the risk of leaving it unmoderated?
You would simply lock everything, give people a chance to download their posts and take it offline at a specified time.
Someone would either set up another forum which replicates this one entirely (happened already). If the legal burdens are too much migrations would be to another forum which has paid mods already (ie MSE). That wouldn't be ideal, and eventually a new forum would break out from that. The circle of life, as it were.
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ilmoro
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'Wondering which of the bu***rs to blame, and watching for pigs on the wing.' - Pink Floyd
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Post by ilmoro on May 29, 2018 10:53:54 GMT
If all the remaining forum staff decided at this point to down tools for good, and leave the forum open but unmoderated the consequence would be
a) the forum would close when the domain registration and proboards hosting expired, i.e. in a few months time
b) in the meantime those wanting legal redress for posts made would ultimately force disclsoure of the domain and forum owner, who would shoulder the risk of punative damages being awarded against them.
The major consideration behind a move to incorporate the forum is it reduces the liability of the forum admins/mods and the domain / forum owner to a notional £1 plus the assets of the company, from the current position of a significant % of the net wealth of those individuals in the case of a punative damage award.
Ultimately the question that needs answering is "Do forum members value a moderated forum enough to ensure it can continue ?".
a) but wouldn't the forum continue for free forever with a slightly more ugly URL? b) wouldn't the forum owner then be proboards? Why would we care about them? Surely they've had multiple problems like that before? a) the pretty .com domain name isnt a problem as it is paid for until 2027, its the ugly one that expires & presumably the hosting with it
PS What happen to the 8 funders?
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Post by mrclondon on May 29, 2018 10:59:23 GMT
a) the pretty .com domain name isnt a problem as it is paid for until 2027, its the ugly one that expires & presumably the hosting with it
PS What happen to the 8 funders?
The 2027 date is for the fee that proboards charge for linking the .com domain onto the forum account.
There have been three donors to the forum, all acknowledged on the first post of the thread your refer to, each of which covered the specific costs described.
There have been no other donors.
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Post by mrclondon on May 29, 2018 11:15:19 GMT
More importantly, the Ministry of Justice has published guidance for forum owners / operators on the UK's Defamation Act 2013 who have to follow a very clear process with deadlines of just 48 hours to act following complaints of defamation to avoid liability themselves.
Does that change inside a limited liability wrapper? The forum owner might change, but the moderators would remain individuals and still be liable as such?
The moderators would be "Company Members" (the equivalent of shareholders in a for profit company) ,and hence their liability would be £1 each (paid at time of becoming a company member), but it would be the forum owner (the company) in the firing line for failure to ensure processes were in place that met the requirements of the Defamation Act.
The concern of a number of those who have left the staff team over the last year is the ownership of the forum is currently a grey area, and there is a risk that liability would be spread around the admins / mods.
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Post by Admin on May 29, 2018 11:28:35 GMT
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invester
P2P Blogger
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Post by invester on May 29, 2018 11:35:30 GMT
Is there a specific example of a legal threat which makes this change necessary? ISTM that the current system has worked out OK.
One strategy might be to simply get rid of all the boards that don't attract high traffic, and let them find another home at the other forum(s).
A slimmed down P2P indie only covering the top x amount of platforms would be easier to manage.
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star dust
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Post by star dust on May 29, 2018 11:51:25 GMT
Is there a specific example of a legal threat which makes this change necessary? ISTM that the current system has worked out OK. One strategy might be to simply get rid of all the boards that don't attract high traffic, and let them find another home at the other forum(s). A slimmed down P2P indie only covering the top x amount of platforms would be easier to manage. We can't go into details but there have been, none fortunately getting beyond the threat stage. Changing / reducing boards will have little impact, you never know where the cause may come from. As said in the original post the regulatory climate has changed. There is a Platform who has recently changed their t&c's and I personally (staff hat off) have felt unable to sign up to them because in my non-legal view they will increase my risk as a member of the forum staff (not as one of their investors) to being litigated against.
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macq
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Post by macq on May 29, 2018 12:55:27 GMT
the problem i can see with KYC is that in the short term you may lose some members who do not want to sign up again under the new terms but many will knowing how good this forum is.But in the long term it may be a struggle to get new members as people are less willing to give info now days and it makes the whole joining process longer/complicated and they will just move on.Also feel that referrals will have limited appeal as people will already have told friends etc about this forum
But i can well understand the incorporate idea from mods point of view and have seen it before when a company i worked at had a management buyout and were looking for staff to be on the board as honorary directors and it was only when we were told that the liability was limited to a £1 that people volunteered
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mark123
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Post by mark123 on May 29, 2018 12:58:50 GMT
I really value the forum. Thank you to the volunteers.
Moving to or joining with a limited liability vehicle looks sensible and shouldn't be expensive.
KYC is a lot of work and it is difficult to understand its value. I guess adding this as a barrier to registration could be the beginning of the end.
Registering with the ICO is quick and inexpensive. Complying with GDPR can be complex and expensive... but only if you process Personally Identifiable Information (another good reason for avoiding KYC).
I would be happy to donate a few quid towards your limited liability vehicle.
Good luck,
Mark
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mary
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Post by mary on May 29, 2018 17:53:37 GMT
I really value the forum. Thank you to the volunteers. KYC is a lot of work and it is difficult to understand its value. I guess adding this as a barrier to registration could be the beginning of the end. Agreed. A poll asking if KYC, as a requirement for using the forum, would discourage people to register would be a useful information point. Given the other polls, there is no point in going where they seem to point if this is a breaking point for a significant part of the audience, which it may be.
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empirica
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Post by empirica on May 29, 2018 21:19:20 GMT
I really value the forum. Thank you to the volunteers. KYC is a lot of work and it is difficult to understand its value. I guess adding this as a barrier to registration could be the beginning of the end. Agreed. A poll asking if KYC, as a requirement for using the forum, would discourage people to register would be a useful information point. Given the other polls, there is no point in going where they seem to point if this is a breaking point for a significant part of the audience, which it may be. It would seem prudent to gauge the appetite for KYC. If the majority decline to support it, you may find yourselves embarking on an expensive journey
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empirica
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Post by empirica on May 29, 2018 21:28:22 GMT
If all the remaining forum staff decided at this point to down tools for good, and leave the forum open but unmoderated the consequence would be
a) the forum would close when the domain registration and proboards hosting expired, i.e. in a few months time
b) in the meantime those wanting legal redress for posts made would ultimately force disclsoure of the domain and forum owner, who would shoulder the risk of punative damages being awarded against them.
The major consideration behind a move to incorporate the forum is it reduces the liability of the forum admins/mods and the domain / forum owner to a notional £1 plus the assets of the company, from the current position of a significant % of the net wealth of those individuals in the case of a punative damage award.
Ultimately the question that needs answering is "Do forum members value a moderated forum enough to ensure it can continue ?".
There has already been an offer to fund the ProBoards hosting / domain name for the next few years, so.... What if someone were to offer to take over the Admin role / function of the Forum with the situation 'as is' and shoulder the responsibilities associated therewith?
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starfished
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Post by starfished on May 29, 2018 21:32:22 GMT
Incorporating to limit financial risk makes sense to me. Enough other entities do just that for risk limitation benefits.
Regarding a subscription model, while I would pay a small amount towards it, I do agree with others it would deter new joiners. Which makes me think a donation approach may be the "least bad" option.
A KYC approach I personally would have difficulty with signing up.
As the forum (and P2P more generally) gets bigger I think it is inevitable that the cankerous tone of some posters would increase, to bring it in line with the tone of the rest of the internet. Not sure I know any quick fixes for addressing that which will not equally impact on the future growth of the forum.
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Post by jackpease on May 30, 2018 7:59:29 GMT
Is there a specific example of a legal threat which makes this change necessary? As a working journalist I have to know how libel works and what is always underestimated is that touchy people can fire off 'warning letters' whether or not there is any justification - and those warning letters must be dealt with. The bar we have to work to (unless supported by an in house lawyer - yeh right!) is not just to avoid an actual libel, but avoiding annoying people enough to claim you are libelling them. So calling into question the motives of platforms/platform reps/receivers/admins etc etc is extremely dodgy territory and it is happening more and more often on this board. However i'm not sure any sort of charging model/ltd liability incorporation is going to change that. I've said before that posting under my real name is quite cathartic in not saying anything rude, if i annoy you, you can find me! I don't know what the answer is as I think the forum has become quite populist in that compared to early days, there's loud voices doing a lot of mudslinging and even with struggling mods there's less and less fact and more and more populist ranting. I never felt nervous about posting in the early days - now there are quite a few threads where it think the view is so entrenched you'd be a brave soul to post. I suspect it is inevitable that mods will get fed up with the onslaught (payment model or no payment model) and that we'll end up un-modded, in which case the only way i may feel confident to contribute would be the ability to like/dislike posts so that we could have some idea whether those that shout loudest really do represent the view of the people. Jack P .
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ceejay
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Post by ceejay on May 30, 2018 8:30:42 GMT
I also greatly value the forum and appreciate the work of the mods.
If this forum were to become unmoderated then I'd be gone, because the **** would take over and I have no time for fighting my way through it. I'd have to look for a new home, which might have to be somewhere big enough (MSE?) to be able to run commercially and pay the mods.
I get the point about incorporating to reduce individual liability; what I'm not clear about is the financial business case. What are the anticipated setup and running costs? This seems to be a critical point that isn't yet clear. If those costs are small enough to be covered by reasonable advertising targets, then great. OTOH, if the model requires unrealistic levels of advertising or referral income or donations then we are into a subscriber model, and I'm not sure that will fly.
KYC is another matter altogether: I'm highly sceptical about whether this is a good idea, or even workable given the current thoughts about data privacy.
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