Project:Terms of Use

Overview

These Terms of Use tell you about our public services at Online Communipedia (henceforth referred to as Project or the Project), our relationship to you as a user, and the rights and responsibilities that guide us both.

Content on this Project is an accumulation of those who decide to edit it, and thus while the site operator may contribute to the Project, generally, the content is only being hosted here but not generated here. At the moment, any content added that is not by the operator is monitored, but if the Project ever grows, this will become unfeasible. This Terms of Use will be updated at such a time. You are welcome to join this Project to improve upon it. Because we are dedicated to making content freely accessible to the public, we generally require that all content you contribute is available under a free license or in the public domain.

Please be aware that you are legally responsible for all of your contributions, edits, and re-use of content under the laws of the United States of America and other applicable laws (which may include the laws where you live or where you view or edit content). This means it is important that you use caution when posting content. In light of this responsibility, we have some rules about what you cannot post, most of which is either for your own protection or for the protection of other users like yourself. Please keep in mind that the content we host is for general informational purposes only, so if you need expert advice for a particular question (such as medical, legal, or financial issues), you should seek the help of a licensed or qualified professional. We also include other important notices and disclaimers, so please read these Terms of Use in their entirety.

Privacy Policy

The privacy policy for this project is located at Project:Privacy policy. We ask that you review it at your earliest convenience.

Content We Host

1. You may find some material objectionable or erroneous: Because we provide a wide array of content that is produced or gathered by fellow users, you may encounter material that you find offensive, erroneous, misleading, mislabeled, or otherwise objectionable. We therefore ask that you use common sense and proper judgment when using our services.
2. Our content is for general informational purposes only: All content is presented for general informational purposes only. It should not be taken as professional advice. Please seek independent professional counseling from someone who is licensed or qualified in the applicable area in lieu of acting on any information, opinion, or advice contained in one of the Project websites.

Prohibited Activities

Certain activities, whether legal or illegal, may be harmful to other users and violate our rules, and some activities may also subject you to liability. Therefore, for your own protection and for that of other users, you may not engage in such activities on our sites. These activities include:

Harassing and Abusing Others

• Engaging in harassment, threats, stalking, spamming, or vandalism; and
• Transmitting chain mail, junk mail, or spam to other users.

Violating the Privacy of Others

• Infringing the privacy rights of others under the laws of the United States of America or other applicable laws (which may include the laws where you live or where you view or edit content);
• Soliciting personally identifiable information for purposes of harassment, exploitation, violation of privacy, or any promotional or commercial purpose not explicitly approved by Online Communipedia community; and
• Soliciting personally identifiable information from anyone under the age of 18 for an illegal purpose or violating any applicable law regarding the health or well-being of minors.

Engaging in False Statements, Impersonation, or Fraud

• Intentionally or knowingly posting content that constitutes libel or defamation;
• With the intent to deceive, posting content that is false or inaccurate;
• Attempting to impersonate another user or individual, misrepresenting your affiliation with any individual or entity, or using the username of another user with the intent to deceive; and
• Engaging in fraud.

Committing Infringement

• Infringing copyrights, trademarks, patents, or other proprietary rights under applicable law.

Misusing Our Services for Other Illegal Purposes

• Posting child pornography or any other content that violates applicable law concerning child pornography;
• Posting or trafficking in obscene material that is unlawful under applicable law; and
• Using the services in a manner that is inconsistent with applicable law.

Engaging in Disruptive and Illegal Misuse of Facilities

• Posting or distributing content that contains any viruses, malware, worms, Trojan horses, malicious code, or other device that could harm our technical infrastructure or system or that of our users;
• Engaging in automated uses of the site that are abusive or disruptive of the services and have not been approved by Online Communipedia community;
• Disrupting the services by placing an undue burden on a Project website or the networks or servers connected with a Project website;
• Disrupting the services by inundating any of the Project websites with communications or other traffic that suggests no serious intent to use the Project website for its stated purpose;
• Knowingly accessing, tampering with, or using any of our non-public areas in our computer systems without authorization; and
• Probing, scanning, or testing the vulnerability of any of our technical systems or networks unless all the following conditions are met:

• such actions do not unduly abuse or disrupt our technical systems or networks;
• such actions are not for personal gain (except for credit for your work);
• you report any vulnerabilities to MediaWiki developers (or fix it yourself); and
• you do not undertake such actions with malicious or destructive intent We reserve the right to exercise our enforcement discretion with respect to the above terms.

Insubordination to Site Officials

• Knowingly ignoring instructions from site administrators.

Account Security

You are responsible for safeguarding your own password and should never disclose it to any third party. You are further responsible for all actions undertaken by your account.

Licensing of Content

To grow the commons of free knowledge and free culture, all users contributing to Online Communipedia are required to grant broad permissions to the general public to re-distribute and re-use their contributions freely, so long as that use is properly attributed and the same freedom to re-use and re-distribute is granted to any derivative works. In keeping with our goal of providing free information to the widest possible audience, we require that when necessary all submitted content be licensed so that it is freely reusable by anyone who cares to access it.

You agree to the following licensing requirements:

1. Text to which you hold the copyright: When you submit text to which you hold the copyright, you agree to license it under:
   • Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License ("CC BY-SA 4.0")
2. Attribution: Attribution is an important part of these licenses. We consider it giving credit where credit is due – to authors like yourself. When you contribute text, you agree to be attributed in any of the following fashions:
   1. Through hyperlink (where possible) or URL to the article to which you contributed (since each article has a history page that lists all authors and editors);
   2. Through hyperlink (where possible) or URL to an alternative, stable online copy that is freely accessible, which conforms with the license, and which provides credit to the authors in a manner equivalent to the credit given on the Project website; or
   3. Through a list of all authors (but please note that any list of authors may be filtered to exclude very small or irrelevant contributions).
3. Importing text: You may import text that you have found elsewhere or that you have co-authored with others, but in such case you warrant that the text is available under terms that are compatible with the CC BY-SA 4.0 license (or, as explained above, another license when exceptionally required by the Project edition or feature) ("CC BY-SA").

   You agree that, if you import text under a CC BY-SA license that requires attribution, you must credit the author(s) in a reasonable fashion. Where such credit is commonly given through page histories (such as Wikimedia copying), it is sufficient to give attribution in the edit summary, which is recorded in the page history, when importing the text. The attribution requirements are sometimes too intrusive for particular circumstances (regardless of the license), and there may be instances where Online Communipedia decides that imported text cannot be used for that reason.

4. Non-text media: Non-text media on the Project are available under a variety of different licenses that support the general goal of allowing unrestricted re-use and re-distribution. When you contribute non-text media, you agree to comply with the requirements for such licenses as described in our policy on the usage of copyrighted material.
5. No revocation of license: Except as consistent with your license, you agree that you will not unilaterally revoke or seek invalidation of any license that you have granted under these Terms of Use for text content or non-text media contributed to Online Communipedia or features, even if you terminate use of our services.
6. Public domain content: Content that is in the public domain is welcome! It is important however that you confirm the public domain status of the content under the law of the United States of America as well as the laws of any other countries as required by the specific Project edition. When you contribute content that is in the public domain, you warrant that the material is actually in the public domain, and you agree to label it appropriately.
7. Re-use: Re-use of content that we host is welcome, though exceptions exist for content contributed under "fair use" or similar exemptions under copyright law. Any re-use must comply with the underlying license(s).

   When you re-use or re-distribute a text page developed by Online Communipedia community, you agree to attribute the authors in any of the following fashions:

   1. Through hyperlink (where possible) or URL to the page or pages that you are re-using (since each page has a history page that lists all authors and editors);
   2. Through hyperlink (where possible) or URL to an alternative, stable online copy that is freely accessible, which conforms with the license, and which provides credit to the authors in a manner equivalent to the credit given on the Project website; or
   3. Through a list of all authors (but please note that any list of authors may be filtered to exclude very small or irrelevant contributions).
   If the text content was imported from another source, it is possible that the content is licensed under a compatible CC BY-SA license. In that case, you agree to comply with the compatible CC BY-SA license. To determine the license that applies to the content that you seek to re-use or re-distribute, you should review the page footer, page history, and discussion page.

   In addition, please be aware that text that originated from external sources and was imported into a Project may be under a license that attaches additional attribution requirements. Users agree to indicate these additional attribution requirements clearly. Depending on the Project, such requirements may appear for example in a banner or other notations pointing out that some or all of the content was originally published elsewhere. Where there are such visible notations, re-users should preserve them.

   For any non-text media, you agree to comply with whatever license under which the work has been made available (which can be discovered by clicking on the work and looking at the licensing section on its description page or reviewing an applicable source page for that work). When re-using any content that we host, you agree to comply with the relevant attribution requirements as they pertain to the underlying license or licenses.
8. Modifications or additions to material that you re-use: When modifying or making additions to text that you have obtained from a Project website, you agree to license the modified or added content under CC BY-SA 4.0 or later (or, as explained above, another license when exceptionally required by the specific Project edition or feature).

   When modifying or making additions to any non-text media that you have obtained from a Project website, you agree to license the modified or added content in accordance with whatever license under which the work has been made available.

   With both text content and non-text media, you agree to clearly indicate that the original work has been modified. If you are re-using text content in a wiki, it is sufficient to indicate in the page history that you made a change to the imported text. For each copy or modified version that you distribute, you agree to include a licensing notice stating which license the work is released under, along with either a hyperlink or URL to the text of the license or a copy of the license itself.

DMCA Compliance

Online Communipedia wants to ensure that the content that we host can be re-used by other users without fear of liability and that it is not infringing the proprietary rights of others. In fairness to our users, as well as to other creators and copyright holders, our policy is to respond to notices of alleged infringement that comply with the formalities of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). Pursuant to the DMCA, we will terminate, in appropriate circumstances, users and account holders of our system and network who are repeat infringers.

However, we also recognize that not every takedown notice is valid or in good faith. In such cases, we strongly encourage users to file counter-notifications when they appropriately believe a DMCA takedown demand is invalid or improper. For more information on what to do if you think a DMCA notice has been improperly filed, you may wish to consult the Chilling Effects website.

If you are the owner of content that is being improperly used on one of the Projects without your permission, you may request that the content be removed under the DMCA. To make such a request, please email us at copyright@onlinecommunipedia.org.

Attribution

 This article incorporates text by the Wikimedia Foundation Governance Wiki available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license.