I got an interesting message today from one of our discussion forum moderators. She says that a person who some time ago was asked to stop contacting her has found her on our forums. Luckily our forum is self-contained, so there is no way this person could get her personal e-mail or phone number. She asked to stop moderating for a little while in hopes that this person would disappear.
This person has been posting perfectly normal, respectful and relevant posts, so it seems there is no obvious reason for me to get involved other than respecting my mod's wishes to pull back from the moderating. And I certainly don't intend on harassing the other person, whose posts are not at all objectionable. There's obviously a back story I don't want to get into it.
But I'm concerned that if this is a restraining order situation (she doesn't specify) that I either a) have a responsibility to report the violation, or b) our online forum posts could be used as evidence in proving the violation.
I am curious about how this turned out. My own feeling is that you have a responsibility to your members to keep a safe community. I am curious about actually pursuing a restraining order to keep them AWAY from my site, because this person is (IMHO) dangerous and a threat to my membership.
Nothing further happened with this. The mod stopped moderating and, not long after, our discussion forums all but died off. Thanks for asking, though! My feeling is that we would certainly want and need to help enforce any legal restrictions, although I think it would be from the angle of enforcing the individual participant's restraining order and not protecting the community since the person's posts were totally relevant and respectful.
Being relevant and respectful doesn't really matter. A child molester might be the most reverant and respectful person, but I still don't want him near my child's school (or any school).
My post above is actually poorly worded. I have a banned user who has sexually harassed members in the past. This person ingeniously finds ways of connecting to my site with legitimate-looking IP addresses which almost certainly are computers he has hacked via his computer business. This person is calm, cool, and polite, but he is actually trying to gain intelligence and gather information on certain members. THAT is what I am going to seek a restraining order for. I've lost members over this already...time for it to end.
Ugh, that is a bad situation. I'm sorry I can't be more help. Have you checked cyberstalking law in your state? Unfortunately, I don't know if the law will recognize the more subtle approach that you describe, or how a restraining order relates to an organization rather than a person. But it sounds like it's certainly worth a look.
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