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bubhub
20-07-2007, 09:10
Dear members

There have been a spate of incidents lately where Bub Hub members have started up niche forums and have seen fit to use our private messaging system to poach members from our forum to these new forums.

This is clearly against our rules. And it is also against common decency. I am a WAHM and my DH and I have worked hard to build up our website and it's forum. Our moderators are volunteers who work hard to assist us in the smooth running of our forum and we will not allow others to potentially harm that hard work.

There are many differing opinions out there and parenting can be a very emotive topic. We do not have a problem, contrary to popular belief, with members belonging to multiple forums. And we don't read private message either. But when you send a private message inviting somebody to join another forum - it invariably gets forwarded onto our administrators and mods. And if you then go and boast about your activities on another forum - well, you are going to get found out.

The Bub Hub forum is provided as a free community support service. If you abuse our rules, you are simply NOT going to be allowed free access to our site. No warnings, no polite emails explaning why you have been banned - our RULES are clear, and the onus is on members to ensure that they read those rules and abide by them. The onus is not on the owners or moderators to spend time politely warning or explaning things to you.

It is EXTREMELY POOR NETIQUETTE to promote another forum and you'll find that most main stream forums (for any topic) will not allow this.

It is a very small number of members who have been poaching. But their actions could be harmful to Bub Hub and some see fit to write slanderous comments about Bub Hub, it's owners and moderators in publically viewable threads on other forums. Slander is illegal and Bub Hub will be taking action against other forums who continue to display any threads concerning us that are inaccurate and damaging. Believe me, if any threads of such a nature about other forums appear on Bub Hub before a mod gets chance to delete them, we get legal letters from those forums!

We started the forums as a way for people to get support and we feel that the majority of users use the forum for that manner. Bub Hub does not make money out of the forum - the advertising is merely there because it costs us a lot of money to run because of the large number of users (most web hosting packages offer 1GB of bandwidth for one year - we use than AN HOUR during peak times). Our core business is our directory and other parts of our business.

It is extremely frustrating to me to have such a small number of people abuse our forum and community spirit this way. :hair:

SO NO MORE - SUCH ACTIONS WILL RESULT IN THE MEMBER RECEIVING AN INSTANT BAN AND THE MODS AND ADMINS WILL NOT SPEND THEIR VALUABLE TIME PROVIDING EXPLANATIONS AND EMAILS - YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!

bubhub
30-08-2007, 15:56
I would like to re-iterate, that PMs that break our rules are FORWARDED onto us by members who feel affronted by other members who abuse our system.

We do not spend hours reading every pm that gets sent through our system and so the ONLY way that we find out about these breaches of our PM rules are when somebody forwards them onto us.

However, just as a word of warning. This is a privately owned forum. All forums allow administrators the ability to read EVERYTHING that is written in that forum, be it in posts, private messages, live chat or private live chat rooms. We DO NOT review those items on a regular basis - we are usually forwarded things - but we are able to do this if we are given cause to do so.

I have NEVER had cause to do this to date.

It is imperative that system administrators for any forum or system anywhere in the world are able to access all parts of their system. If we were not, the drug traffickers, child pornographers and terrorists of the world would have a field day with a secret communication system handed to them on a plate.

Hotmail would be able to read any emails sent through their system if they had cause to do so.

So, before you break our rules via PM, please consider the above, and when you get found out, please accept that you will be banned from our site and take it on the chin. Do not complain about 'breaches of privacy' or the like. Your privacy is intact - we do not forward your personal details onto anybody. That is your privacy.

Just don't break our rules - and you'll have no problems.