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Suggestion: Built-in Impressum and Disclaimer

Ikadon

By Ikadon
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Ikadon Enthusiast

Ikadon

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Hello guys,

I know this might sound strange to many of you, but the (changed) laws here make it necessary to provide an Impressum (some information about the admin) as well as an Disclaimer (there are some paragraphs of law that we need to write in there).

In vBulletin I used to have a mod for this, but for my latest project that used IP. Solutions I built an external site for info like that and linked it.

I know there are mods for this, but the thing is, neither of them was available when the board was in offline-mode. So sometimes some tasks may take a few hours to be completed and while this time there wouldn't be an impressum nor a disclaimer.

The problem here... there are maaaaaaaaany greedy people (*coughs* lawyers) out there waiting for this and sending so called "dissuasion" (?). That's legal and an admin would need to pay a few hundred bucks just because the impressum/disclaimer wasn't available for a few hours.

Could you please implement a global Impressum and Disclaimer-Site to be used and accessed through all applications installed? Please, this is no fun and you would really, really help many webmasters from countries that use to have laws like this.

Thanks ahead,
Ikadon

PS: I hope this is in the right section, but I wanted it to be implemented as a general system for all applications.

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Guest

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Germany, austria and others... the european union doesn't apply all laws to all countries, so I don't know where webmasters are forced to include an Impressum as well as a Disclaimer.


It's definetely law, sadly :(




Could this not be achieved simply by linking (in your board footer) to a topic containing the content you described?
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Ikadon Enthusiast

Ikadon

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Could this not be achieved simply by linking (in your board footer) to a topic containing the content you described?




Sadly not, for as I said it must be accessible at ALL times! So I could never go in offline-mode then. (This is, by the way, not an unrealistic scenario. A friend of mine got such a warning and had to pay several hundred euros because his impressum wasn't visible for a day, because there was a longer maintenance due to some conflicts.)

The most important thing is that it is accessiable at ALL times, no matter if the rest of the applications is accessible or not. (sure, if the server is down or something else and every visitor gets error-messages it's not a problem)

There are too many too greedy bastards out there, sadly :(
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Ikadon Enthusiast

Ikadon

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Could you not add a regular html file to your website, and link it from the board footer?




I'll quote myself (is my english this bad?)


In vBulletin I used to have a mod for this, but for my latest project that used IP. Solutions I built an external site for info like that and linked it.




The thing is, that I can do this, but some people simply can't, and now guess... those people won't buy anything from IPS but will stick to other software that has something like that built in. (apart from the hard-coded language bits in the ACP this is one huge thing that scares away many interested people/customers)

The thing is, that many forum-admins don't even know how the software works, or what happens behind the scenes and they didn't need to know anything of this for years.

I shouldn't be a big task to built a small internal site for this, configurable through the ACP, or is it?

It's more of hint though.
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bfarber Grand Master

bfarber

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The thing is, that I can do this, but some people simply can't, and now guess... those people won't buy anything from IPS but will stick to other software that has something like that built in. (apart from the hard-coded language bits in the ACP this is one huge thing that scares away many interested people/customers)




While you are correct in that this wouldn't be hard to build, if this is something that so many of our international customers have needed for a long time, I'm a bit surprised that this is the first I've heard of it. :unsure:
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Ikadon Enthusiast

Ikadon

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While you are correct in that this wouldn't be hard to build, if this is something that so many of our international customers have needed for a long time, I'm a bit surprised that this is the first I've heard of it. :unsure:




Oh, I won't search but I've found it somewhere in the downs of your forums ;) Also, I said "germany" and "austria", those laws are present, I don't make them up out of thin air. I guess if you search you may even find them in english-language.

I've talked with some people I knew from vBulletin-germay about my move to IPS in the past, and one thing that always came up was that there is no (free) modification for an impressum and a disclaimer that is accessible at all times.

It's a hint, as I said. I don't really need it, but it's the same discussion as with the hard-coded language in the ACP. It seems you can't imagine that some people don't speak even a bit of english, but they are out there. People who are too old, simply don't want to learn another language etc. there are many among them that operate forums. (I was surprised too) The same goes for people who know what HTML is from hearsay but never touched any code before. If you really prefere to leave these customers to others, it's your decision, but if it's not hard to build... .

Your features seem pretty cool to me, but for others they are useless unless they can use them and therefore they need to be able to read them as well as stick to the laws of their countries.
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Ikadon Enthusiast

Ikadon

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That will change shortly. :thumbsup:




Thank you very much! Wether it's a (free) modification or a built-in feature, as long as it's accessible at all times (!) and configurable via the ACP (standard-law-text for visitors + personal information webmasters here are forced to share with the entire world -.-) I'll now be able to have something in hands when the same discussion comes up again.

Thank you very, very much!

(The only thing that stays is the language-system, but you already said that you'll be improving it. Hopefully you'll really take this for serious.)
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Collin S. Community Regular

Collin S.

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Thank you very much! Wether it's a (free) modification or a built-in feature, as long as it's accessible at all times (!) and configurable via the ACP (standard-law-text for visitors + personal information webmasters here are forced to share with the entire world -.-) I'll now be able to have something in hands when the same discussion comes up again.



Thank you very, very much!



(The only thing that stays is the language-system, but you already said that you'll be improving it. Hopefully you'll really take this for serious.)



I'm whipping up a quick 1-page hook that will allow you to display a link for your Impressum on all pages. Should be ready by tomorrow, I'll send it to you and you can tell me if it meets the requirements of Germany & Aus.
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bfarber Grand Master

bfarber

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Collin - fyi, if you add

define( 'IPS_ENFORCE_ACCESS', TRUE );



into your application's coreVariables.php file, it will enforce that the page/application is accessible even if board is offline or the user is banned. That is, assuming you are making an application/module/etc. to show the impressum, as opposed to allowing the admin to define an external link.

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Collin S. Community Regular

Collin S.

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Ikadon, I sent you a PM with an attachment containing a very basic impressum mod. It's just an ACP editable setting for Impressum and an app tab that will display it.

I'm not sure about how the laws and regulations for Impressum work, so if you can clear that up with me, I can tidy things up and post it for other users.

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Amged Osman Collaborator

Amged Osman

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Collin - fyi, if you add



define( 'IPS_ENFORCE_ACCESS', TRUE );

into your application's coreVariables.php file, it will enforce that the page/application is accessible even if board is offline or the user is banned. That is, assuming you are making an application/module/etc. to show the impressum, as opposed to allowing the admin to define an external link.

I discover new stuff everyday in IPB, I rly NEED that code for my application .. is it documented in any of the official or community documentation? i do not think so .. i guess these little tweaks are very very important if you have time could you please add that trick (and any that is like it) to the official documentation ? (if its not already there ) That code is sure is very important for many applications, example: my contact form and Marketplace paypal return validation url also I would like to believe that it could be tweaked to certain "section or module like for example 


if ( $request['section'] == 'mysection' ){

   define( 'IPS_ENFORCE_ACCESS', TRUE );

 }

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Ikadon Enthusiast

Ikadon

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Ikadon, I sent you a PM with an attachment containing a very basic impressum mod. It's just an ACP editable setting for Impressum and an app tab that will display it.



I'm not sure about how the laws and regulations for Impressum work, so if you can clear that up with me, I can tidy things up and post it for other users.




Hmm, the thing is that currently I don't have an active installation of IPB, sadly, but as soon as I get home I'll try it out. For now I sent you a PM.
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bfarber Grand Master

bfarber

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I discover new stuff everyday in IPB, I rly NEED that code for my application .. is it documented in any of the official or community documentation? i do not think so .. i guess these little tweaks are very very important if you have time could you please add that trick (and any that is like it) to the official documentation ? (if its not already there )



That code is sure is very important for many applications, example: my contact form and Marketplace paypal return validation url




also I would like to believe that it could be tweaked to certain "section or module


like for example



if ( $request['section'] == 'mysection' ){ define( 'IPS_ENFORCE_ACCESS', TRUE ); }








There are probably millions of "tricks" like this. It's hard to document everything, but I'll add a note for someone to document this.

Yes, you can add if checks around the constant definition too.
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Amged Osman Collaborator

Amged Osman

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There are probably millions of "tricks" like this. It's hard to document everything, but I'll add a note for someone to document this.



Yes, you can add if checks around the constant definition too.




Yes I'm sure its hard to keep up / track all the tricks, but how about this, you make a new document in official docmentation and create a text file on ur machine add the tricks to ur text file when ever you create / run into them, and update that official document monthly? yes it means more work for you but i think it will greatly help us 3rd party modders.

Also regarding the official documentation (PHPDocs) there is no way it could tell us a document has been updated? like a side note to classes or function
Example
IPSMember (UPDATED)
so we can recheck the class, because for me (dont know about others) i've read most of teh official docs once, and i belive i will notr read it agin unless i'm looking for a certain function.. but thats not what the docs should be all about.. not just a refrense it should be more liek a tracker of the new added docs / methods added to IPB ew versions ...
just my $0.2
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Yukiko Explorer

Yukiko

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Yes I'm sure its hard to keep up / track all the tricks, but how about this, you make a new document in official docmentation and create a text file on ur machine add the tricks to ur text file when ever you create / run into them, and update that official document monthly? yes it means more work for you but i think it will greatly help us 3rd party modders.



Also regarding the official documentation (PHPDocs) there is no way it could tell us a document has been updated? like a side note to classes or function


Example


IPSMember (UPDATED)


so we can recheck the class, because for me (dont know about others) i've read most of teh official docs once, and i belive i will notr read it agin unless i'm looking for a certain function.. but thats not what the docs should be all about.. not just a refrense it should be more liek a tracker of the new added docs / methods added to IPB ew versions ...


just my $0.2




their not using phpdocs their actually using their own ip.content system for it :)
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