I wonder, dear reader, if you ever visited an internet forum?
Well, I must confess that, in my time on the internet, I have visited one or two. For a list of reasons that would probably bore any reader of this blog, I have been banned from one particular forum which I regularly frequented.
I'm not normally a man who acts in haste. And this occasion was no different. I spent a couple of days thinking about the situation, and whether my contribution to that forum had been meaningful to me - or, indeed, to anyone else.
I may have posted over 2,000 items to it - may, even, have praised it a couple of times in magazines or on national radio.
But the fact that I've been banned - and thus can't access the forum to even state my case - makes me feel just a little shabby about the whole affair.
Thankfully, I noticed that in the terms of membership of this forum, which I think I must have signed up to when I joined, it states that (and I quote):
you remain solely responsible for the content of your messages
I had a chat with a legal friend of mine tonight, and he assures me that this means that, if I request that every post I ever made to that forum is deleted, it would satisfy the terms of my membership.
So, here's hoping. I'd hate to think that, somewhere on the internet, all my dirty linen was hanging there for all and sundry to see, without me having a chance to give it a quick run through the Indesit.
10 comments:
Fess up and I will have two burly cyber thugs at their door quicker than launching Mozilla Firefox...but you've gotta give me some clues.
ADG
Thanks for your kind words, Andrew. But I am happy to let this one take its course. I'll keep you posted as the mini- (not to say microscopic) drama develeps.
I had a little look at some websites about internet law, and it seems you can save yourself any lawyer fees as the position is quite clear-cut.
Your posts are your copyright. In that sense, they belong to you and can be amended or deleted as you see fit.
(The same holds true for this post, by me - I can ask you to delete it at any time, and you are obliged to do so).
Good luck!
Thank you again, Andrew - and don't believe I was not tempted down that route. But I am a man of firm principle and my days of trouble-making are over. Your support, however, is valued.
Bill
I've just been looking and think that it's not you that's dirty. You smell like new mown hay in the park. I do believe it's caused by the roses. They're going off something awful.What a pong! It's time to change the water and the flowers.
Principled
Thank you, An. Maybe it is time someone woke up and smelled the coffee on that site. As you probably gathered, my skill with the metaphor has waned since I retired, but I guess they should be able to change the water without throwing out the proverbial baby rose.
Thanks again!
Some forums are pretty sticky about control, and it's always best to leave the ones who are power hungry alone to their own kingdom.
Sound advice, Saskboy, which I think I'll follow. But I'll still ask for my 2000+ posts back!
I understand. I used to post at eBay a lot, but their routine deletion of threads led me to save most of the stuff I wanted to my computer or blog. It's one reason I started my blog, so I'd be in charge of most of what I wrote, and if it stayed live on the web or not. With Google Cache and Wayback machine though, there's no such thing as deleting something that's been up for weeks.
It's one reason I started my blog
And a very fine blog you've got there too, sir.
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