Prohibit unsolicited PMs for goods/services/support to any member

Proposal

Amend the MyBB Community Forums Global forum rules (http://community.mybb.com/thread-74201.html) to prohibit the sending of any unsolicited private messages soliciting goods, services, and/or assistance to any community member, not just team members.

Justification

Currently, no community members other than team members have protection from unwanted private messages unless they elect to only allow private messages from specific users on their buddy list, which many don’t want to do because it makes communicating with people who they want to receive private messages from more difficult. Amending the rules in this way would protect all users by default from unsolicited support requests, service requests, etc.

Effects & Implications

• Amend Global forum rules, “5 - Miscellaneous” section to strike “Do not send private messages to staff for support” and replace with “Do not send unsolicited private messages to any community member for support, goods, or services”. Further, strike “any of the staff for support” and replace with “any community member for the purposes of requesting goods, services, and/or assistance (including technical support).”
• Add new warning type with 10 point (may change in discussion phase) value and TBD (determine in discussion phase) time for this behavior, such as Unsolicited PMs to community members.
• The rule is a bit broad and could (depending on perspective) be excessive. The rule should be evaluated/employed on a case-by-case basis such that if a related behavior seems clearly inappropriate that this rule can cover it without a doubt. If the behavior isn’t clearly inappropriate, then staff/moderators can exercise their discretion.
• A definition of “consent” to this category of PMs may be hard to establish. For example, a user advertising support services or promotional services in their signature may waive this protection by the nature of their participation here in advertising such a thing. Or, on a case-by-case basis, a given recipient may permit someone to follow up with them for more support via PM, in which case this rule would not apply.
• Exceptions may apply. This rule would be, in spirit, intended at stopping mass-PMs to people without ample reason. If a given message is clearly personalized to target a single recipient for something the sender in good faith believes the recipient will be okay with, then this rule may not apply to that scenario.

Metadata

• First draft: 18 Jun 2016
• Author(s): Josh H.
• Status: Accepted