Is it ethical for a forum administrator to say that once something has been posted on the forum, it will never be removed? Let's say a member on a forum decides he wants to quit the forum. Should he have the right to delete guides he has posted on the forum and monetize them on his own website? Also, do you think members would be more cautious about posting guides on a forum if an admin decided they would do this? Thanks for your opinions!
Yes it is ethical, if a user posts his own work on a forum the administrator has every right to keep it there and not delete it even if the user requests for it to be deleted. Unless the work is copyrighted or stolen from somewhere else the administrator doesn't have to delete the topics/posts.
What about the Administrator going as far as removing the member's editing privileges so the member can't remove the content?
no, i think it's not ethical, someone should have known that a forum is used for sharing, admins can say that the posted contents cannot be remove, but members can also edit them, if someone decided not to share his/her guides anymore in a forum, so he can do that....tell me, is there a forum that forbid members to edit their posts?
Well, You can!! What most people do is, they give privilages for members to Edit/Delete their posts but curb them from Deleting their threads!! Just incase, It doesnt matter if a Member Edit the thread insake to be deleted to Crap like "Here is nothing or whatever"!! Threads of the Others, who are serious on your forums Matter!! ~Exp~
Yep it is still ethical, a forum administrator can do whatever he likes with a users privileges etc. whilst I don't find it a good thing to do, it's not unethical.
Its based on the forum rules. If they made a rule that no post will be deleted. You can't demand anything
Legally you should be in the clear with content posted by a member. They don't have recourse to force you to remove it. How you word site policy is important though. You want things clear and consistent for all members. I personally like to only give edit and delete ability to upgraded/paid members. It's a real incentive to upgrade for some people.
What RectangleMan said. However, if someone posted an email address or something that they decided they don't want public, I remove it upon request.
Ethics? You wouldn't be asking this type of question if the forum rules on your site were clear in the first place, so ethical would be having the forum rules available up front with this type of cases mentioned so that members are aware of what could happen to their posts if they decide to remove them (or remove the text within). As administrator, you have the last word and decision power. But it is not ethical to keep the posts of a member that has explicitly stated his will to remove them for whatever reason. If people on my forums decide to remove their posts, so let them be. It's their participation, their effort and their thoughts that make a forum succeed in the long term. If you're in doubt if it's ethical to proceed, the odds are that it is just plain wrong.