MyBB Community Forums

I'm sorry if this is being posted in the wrong place. I just have no idea where to go for something like this.

I was absent mostly last month from one of my forums and apparently some HUGE drama erupted. Normally, forum drama isn't something I get too worried about. However, when one member is accusing another of luring them into a chat room and being a pedophile, I think that merits some action. The things is, I have no idea what to do.

I logged on today with a flood of PMs. Apparently one member (who I'll just call J because I don't think their user names need to leave my forum), accused another member, R, of luring him into a chat. He made the following thread: (http://forums.brisingr.net/showthread.php?tid=608) And made his accusations known.

R then PMd me asking to delete her account.

J also PMd all the staff and a ton of members telling them to watch out for R. Now, R has been a good and active member throughout the last couple of years, so seeing this really shocked me, but this guys doesn't have much proof. Well, thanks to that PM reading plugin, I was able to check in on their PMs. (I only installed that plugin in case something like this happened, so this was my first time using it). I compiled a log of those PMs which I am attaching as a .txt to this topic.

If you read it, you'll see that J seems to know R's name and R, in the PMs is accusing him of being the creeper.

Well, if you read the thread, you'll see that this guy suddenly apologizes. (WTH!?) It doesn't add up at all. And then R asked that I don't delete her account.

It seems to me like one of them is or isn't a creeper. I've presented everything I know to you guys because I seriously need some help here. I'm only an 18-year old kid running a forum, but I know that something like this absolutely cannot go ignored. I haven't talked to either of the members yet. They have no idea that I can read their PMs either.

What do I do!? Is there a place for webmasters to report this sort of stuff? And yet, what if both of them are just teens acting stupid and then I put them under some crazy investigation?

Please help. Again, sorry if this doesn't go here. I just have NO idea what to do or where to go.

Should help. http://forums.brisingr.net/showthread.ph...7#pid12977

(2010-04-02, 07:52 PM)41shots Wrote: [ -> ]Should help. http://forums.brisingr.net/showthread.ph...7#pid12977

I know he apologized, but it's just extremely suspicious that he suddenly does that. Clearly something happened to make him say anything at all. And, looking at the PMs, he knows R's real name without her knowing. >_>

Well if you have a pedophile on your hands, I suggest you do something about it before the situation gets messy.

From reading all that, to me it seems as though J got confused. Well not confused but had the wrong person. Looks like he thought it was someone else in real life to me, then when she didn't respond, he made that thread accusing her of being a Pedo even though he had the wrong person.

R seems to not know what's going on and didn't respond because he's got the wrong person and is just plain confused/weirded out.

Either that or scenario #2, they know eachother, but he's under another name. Once again he got frustrated from her not responding and made the thread.

Either way she probably isn't a pedo or anything and he was just angry.

Report it to the local authorities and let them deal with it...

Looks like someone fell off their rocker.

1 week vacation for J.

If you don't know what to do, I would delete them both, no questions asked. Then, just say they left. Less stress for you and your community.

Edit: Does the guy have a log of this chat?

I have a few concerns, firstly you shouldn't use that plugin unless you make users aware of it in the registration agreement. People would consider it an invasion of privacy if they believed their conversations were private and you were reading them (although this isn't a huge issue because they are stored unencrypted in the database). Secondly you shouldn't be posting private message contents publicly without the sender, and receivers permission.

On to the actual situation, you shouldn't have allowed this to take place publicly like that, I would start by unapproving the post. Then I would contact person J and get the full story from her, if she legitimately has a case then forward it to the authorities immediately, if not though then give them at least a 7 day time out. It sounds like a bunch of kids who know each other having an immature dispute over your forum so don't worry about it too much, really though, making those accusations just isn't on so I wouldn't let J off that easily.