Advice on ToS for an Unincorporated Association
Jack_Ukleja is seeking help in creating a Terms of Service (ToS) and Privacy Policy for an unincorporated association using Discourse. The default template is commercially oriented and doesn’t apply to an unincorporated association.
SidV suggests modifying the existing ToS, but doesn’t fully understand the question.
Sailsman63 recommends replacing “the Company” with “the Association” and notes that liability is still a concern. According to the UK government, individual members of an unincorporated association can be held personally responsible for debts and contractual obligations. Sailsman63 advises seeking local legal help and defining a clear chain of responsibility in the ToS.
codinghorror emphasizes the importance of consulting legal experts and sharing the findings with the community.
Is anyone out there using Discourse as a forum for an unincorporated association e.g. community group, club etc. and had a go at creating a better suited Terms of Service (ToS) and Privacy Policy?
Discourse obviously comes with the nice ToS template, but it’s quite commercially oriented, with stuff about “the company”, liability etc. that just doesn’t apply to an unincorporated association.
But you can change the ToS whenever you want.
I would not be understanding your question.
Why would it need to be that different? Replace “the Company” with “the Association” and you’d have a decent first pass…
As regards liability, well… someone is still responsible for the site, security, and making sure that relevant data protection legislation, etc are being followed.
Pulled from the UK government page that you linked:
Individual members are personally responsible for any debts and contractual obligations.
I am not a lawyer, but this sounds like members of the association could be held personally responsible in case of a failure there. You may want to get more local legal help, but having a clearly defined chain of responsibility explicitly stated in the TOS sounds like a good idea to me.
Question to ask yourself: is every user of the site a member of the association? If not, you almost certainly have a contact (are implied contacts a thing in the UK?) between “the Association” and regular users.
You’d have to ask for legal advice from legal experts – and if you do, please share what you find here with us.