Forum deleted by mistake?

[jellybee]

Forum URL: (private)

Hello there,

I woke up this morning to find that my recently-created forum has been deleted with the following message:

In accordance with Section 25(a) of the ProBoards Terms of Service, this forum has been taken offline.

I'm currently the only member of the forum (as it was created just a few days ago), so I know for certain that there is no hate speech, pornography, violent or illegal content, spam etc. - it's just a forum with resources for content creators on YouTube and Twitch.

I'm not sure if it was reported with malicious intent or if it was deleted as a genuine mistake, but if it could be restored before my hours of work have been deleted for good, that would be brilliant, thank you.

[Scott]

jellybee, you would need to email our Abuse Department at [e-mail]

That department deals with forums taken offline.

[jellybee]

Dec 11, 2018 14:00:33 GMT -8 Scott said:

jellybee , you would need to email our Abuse Department at [e-mail]

That department deals with forums taken offline.

That seems a bit odd - abuse in what sense? I'm the only member and I haven't reported anything!

[Scott]

jellybee, odd or not, that is the department you need to contact if you want to pursue having the forum brought back online.

[jellybee]

Dec 11, 2018 14:04:54 GMT -8 Scott said:

jellybee , odd or not, that is the department you need to contact if you want to pursue having the forum brought back online.

Thank you for your help. I've just got in touch via email. If it turns out that my forum was reported by a troll/rival forum/etc, will there be any consequences on their end, i.e. account termination? I can't even begin to imagine why they targeted me, I've only been posting for a few days!

[mmhmm]

Dec 11, 2018 14:06:47 GMT -8 jellybee said:

Dec 11, 2018 14:04:54 GMT -8 Scott said:

jellybee , odd or not, that is the department you need to contact if you want to pursue having the forum brought back online.

Thank you for your help. I've just got in touch via email. If it turns out that my forum was reported by a troll/rival forum/etc, will there be any consequences on their end, i.e. account termination? I can't even begin to imagine why they targeted me, I've only been posting for a few days!

Matters of abuse are not handled by the Admin staff here on Support. The answer to your question can only be given by the abuse team and I doubt seriously they'll share with you regarding any disciplinary actions taken.

[moonbeam]

Also, the abuse team would not remove a forum simply because a rival reported it. That's not how it works. Everything reported to them is thoroughly investigated, and forums are only removed if the offense is widespread.

[Scott]

Not really much to add beyond what mmhmm and moonbeam posted above. However I will stress that the Abuse Department would never divulge information relating to reports. Users should feel confident that they can submit abuse reports and not have that information shared with the forum/user in question — even if it's related to a troll, etc.

Additionally just echoing moonbeam, "Everything reported to [Abuse] is thoroughly investigated." They are quite savvy to recognize if a forum is wrongfully being targeted.

[Kami]

To add on, PB doesn't want​ to remove forums willy-nilly. Moonbeam touched on this when she said 'forums are only removed if the offense is widespread' -- to further elaborate, removing a forum for every report regardless of the voracity of the claim(s) will not only errode the trust they've established with their userbase, but also affect their financial bottom line. Every forum generates ad revenue and/or an alternate means of revenue for PB through upgrades, ​​​so removing one simply because it's been reported would be foolish.

In my experience, if the offence is minor the abuse team is interested in preserving the owner's use of PB and will contact them privately on the forum (via PM) to alert them of any issue(s) that violate the ToS and give them the opportunity to rectify it of their own accord. This happened a few years ago, but I once saw the abuse team help a forum over the course of several weeks to bring their content into compliance. PB doesn't want​ to lose your business, so a complete removal on the grounds of a ToS violation is usually their last resort -- or their nuclear solution in the event there's no way to adjust the forum's content to be compliant.​​​