[RFC] Legal Terms Changes

[MichaelC]

*snip*
3) I know of no precedent for requiring a "guest" to view the terms of service before reading the content (except, obviously for registration-required sites)

I think he meant when boards allow guest posting.

[A_Jelly_Doughnut]

Even then, my point stands.

[Pony99CA]

*snip*
3) I know of no precedent for requiring a "guest" to view the terms of service before reading the content (except, obviously for registration-required sites)

I think he meant when boards allow guest posting.

Nope, I meant what I said -- when a guest visits your board, they have to agree to the ToS before reading it. It's meant to be an enforceable license (like software uses) in case you don't want to get sued for the content of third party posts.

Many Web sites have a ToS link at the bottom of the page. If you click them, they often say something like "By using this site, you agree to these terms." I can't imagine that those are enforceable. First, they're buried at the bottom of the page where nobody may even look at them. Second, you can't be unilaterally bound to a contract just because one party says so (unless you've previously agreed to that).

If they were enforceable, I'd be putting the following in my sites:

By reading my site, you agree to send me $100 per page visited.

Do you think that I could enforce that?

However, if you make somebody take an affirmative action before they read your site, that at least has a chance of holding up in court. That indicates a "meeting of the minds" between the two parties necessary for a valid contract. (At least, that's my high school Business Law class understanding of U.S. contract law. )

3) I know of no precedent for requiring a "guest" to view the terms of service before reading the content (except, obviously for registration-required sites)

Let's assume that there is no precedent. Why not be the first then? That's how precedent gets set -- by somebody trying something for the first time. If nobody did anything just because there was no precedent, we'd all be living in caves foraging for food (if we even survived).

Again, this option would be off by default. It would only be intended for the people who were worried about getting sued.

Steve

[imkingdavid]

If they were enforceable, I'd be putting the following in my sites:

By reading my site, you agree to send me $100 per page visited.

Do you think that I could enforce that?

That sucks if you count the ToC as a page view.

Really, I don't think that having a required ToC/Privacy Policy/Whatever page for simply viewing the site is something we really need to add to the core. Perhaps a MOD.

I might, might be able to be convinced to consider adding a page that must be viewed before guest posting and then allowing the registration agreement and the new page to be modified in the ACP.

But at this point I still don't really think it's a crucial feature we need to put into core codebase.

[A_Jelly_Doughnut]

Let's assume that there is no precedent. Why not be the first then? That's how precedent gets set -- by somebody trying something for the first time. If nobody did anything just because there was no precedent, we'd all be living in caves foraging for food (if we even survived).

Because its a waste of phpBB's time to implement a feature that no one uses.

[Pony99CA]

I'm reviving this because the items discussed here would be good candidates to display on my proposed Legal Settings page. The current proposal has an area to replace the copyright/credit field, and that could also be used to put such verbiage there if desired.

Steve