Dear Members,
I wanted to take a moment to talk to everyone about legal TOS that everyone agrees to upon joining Hogwarts Online as there have been some misunderstandings recently about them. The administrative team has always admired and respected the intellectual creations of our members to the best of our abilities.
Legally, it is true, that all things posted on these forums are the legal property of the host (eg. me) and by extension, Hogwarts Online System and the Administrative Staff. This is not something that HO has ever enforced as, again, we respect the intellectual creations of our individual members. Members are free to delete their content or request it archived if they do not have deletion permissions and admins will always follow appropriate procedures in adhering to this policy.
However, I want to stress that the expectations of administrators, particularly of our Governors, are entirely different. When an administrator creates something in congress with the Governor team with the intention of it becoming a staple of the site, that content becomes the property of the site no ifs ands or buts and HOS will stand behind our legal right to that content if it is threatened. We will ALWAYS give appropriate credit to the original creators, but we will not drastically alter any site content because a former staff member becomes disgruntled. This has been a longstanding issue on HO that I intend to set straight once and for all.
Moving forward, I hope we all have an understanding of this and contention with the TOS need to be brought directly to my attention and not to the attention of any other Governors past or present. This is not a site issue but a legal issue that myself and my attorney will address.
Thank you,