IP Infringement and Posts with Links not Appearing

[Eric]

(This is a copy of the site-wide alert previously posted.)

Hello everyone! We have recently received a number of reports of someone’s post being hidden when a website link or email address are included. This happens because Baldr's automatic content moderation system has been triggered and the post been hidden and flagged for staff attention. There are two reasons the automated system will hide a post:

1. Emails are hidden to protect users from bots which scrape public areas of forums looking for Personal Identifiable Information (PII), including email addresses. If you want to exchange email addresses, please use direct messages.
2. In the event that you linked a website and your post was hidden, the site to which you are linking is on the list for known copyright-infringing websites. Please ensure the sites to which you are linking are legitimate SRDs or free versions of rule systems where we can validate the IP owner has authorized release. We take copyright infringement seriously because it can threaten the site’s existence. We have no desire to receive Cease & Desist notices due to allowing copyrighted works to be uploaded onto the site or linked from the site to pirated copies elsewhere on the internet.

[Eric]

As an update to this topic, the previous solution was causing some confusion among game masters who didn’t get any indication as to why posts were flagged for Moderation and thus might have accidentally approved infringing links. These sites are now blocked by the word filter to prevent them from being linked from MW at all.

As above, if you believe a site should be allowed and can point us to a definitive statement from the IP owner, we will remove the block. Anything to the effect of “consult your local laws/attorney/etc. as to whether this content can be freely shared” is not positive confirmation and will not be considered.