Writing a website's T&C

[betajaen]

Hi there,

I'm re-designing and re-writing the wiki software for my NxOgre website (NxOgre.org). I'm having a little trouble deciding how I should approach writing the legal side of it. I understand I will need a set of Terms and Conditions. Currently articles on the website can only be written by myself and a few trusted fellows, but the new software will allow user registrations.

So to stop myself getting in legal trouble (or at least have a leg to stand on) when some idiot decides to post something questionable, I need a Terms and Conditions document that they must agree to when signing up, containing:

- What they can and can't do.
- What is the copyright of their submission.
- How and What I do to protect their private data.
- Why I set a cookie in their browser.

I'm wondering if anyone has gone through a similar situation before, and if so do they have any advice. Before anyone says "Get a lawyer", lawyers are expensive, and even more expensive when we are dealing with international law.

[DanielSefton]

I wouldn't worry about it... Unless the website is going to be massive (thousands of members), a terms and conditions and privacy policy is pretty much pointless. I've gone overboard with it in the past, and written masses of text for that purpose, but I've come to realise that there isn't any need, and it became more of a 'just because I can' kinda thing.

For a Wiki at least, having say a creative commons or GNU document license is more than enough to protect yourself.

http://www.creativecommons.org/

Also, if you do come to write terms and conditions, make it very generalised and brief. If you make it too long, anyone that does breach it could claim that there was a hole in your conditions. Whereas, if you have something simple like "All material is copyright their original authors. The material on this website is for informational purposes, any third-party content belongs to their respectful owners. Any personal details stored on this website will not be passed to any third-party. bla bla bla", there's not much room for complaint.

[jacmoe]

Well, he is worrying about it.

Wikipedia disclaimer:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia: ... disclaimer
Wikipedia privacy policy:
http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Privacy_policy

GNU FDL for the content and Public Domain for the code therein is IMO befitting.

[betajaen]

@DanielSefton
Ah, keep it general and brief. Good idea! I am planning to use the CC licence or the GNU FDL/Public Domain which will cover 'most of who owns what'. Cookie and tracking isn't a problem and I don't have to describe the UK Data Protection act since the server is in the US; I can briefly mention that I store the users email address on the server and it won't be given out to a third-party though.

I am a little confused what the correct wordage is for what the user can and cannot do though; Obviously; things that violate the law and my hosting providers T&C. But for example; I don't want pornography, advertisement, insults, threatening words and just nonsense.

@Jacmoe

Those are practically like essays there, if I'm going more generic and brief. It needs to be much more condensed.

[jacmoe]

Those are practically like essays there, if I'm going more generic and brief. It needs to be much more condensed.

I didn't mean you to copy the whole lot!

By the way, the phpbb registration agreement is like this:

By accessing “what_evar_place” (hereinafter “we”, “us”, “our”, “what_evar_place”, “http://place.what_evar.com”), you agree to be legally bound by the following terms. If you do not agree to be legally bound by all of the following terms then please do not access and/or use “what_evar_place”. We may change these at any time and we’ll do our utmost in informing you, though it would be prudent to review this regularly yourself as your continued usage of “what_evar_place” after changes mean you agree to be legally bound by these terms as they are updated and/or amended.

/* snip */

You agree not to post any abusive, obscene, vulgar, slanderous, hateful, threatening, sexually-orientated or any other material that may violate any laws be it of your country, the country where “what_evar_place” is hosted or International Law. Doing so may lead to you being immediately and permanently banned, with notification of your Internet Service Provider if deemed required by us. The IP address of all posts are recorded to aid in enforcing these conditions. You agree that “what_evar_place” have the right to remove, edit, move or close any topic at any time should we see fit. As a user you agree to any information you have entered to being stored in a database. While this information will not be disclosed to any third party without your consent, neither “what_evar_place” nor phpBB shall be held responsible for any hacking attempt that may lead to the data being compromised.

[betajaen]

That's the kind of stuff I want!

Someone should do a Creative Common's spin-off, just for Terms and Conditions, or at least have some sort of standard - where one can fill in a form and have a computer generated one. No wonder lawyers make so much money.

[DanielSefton]

Obviously Wikipedia is going to have a monstrous amount of legal documentation, since it literally contains all the content in the universe, with millions of users.

If you state a great long list of T&Cs, there's always going to be something you missed. Like, "Aha! But, you didn't say...". Insults, profanity, pornography etc. can be condensed into "offensive material".

You're right Jacmoe, phpBB's T&C is pretty solid. That's a perfect example of what I mean by generalised.

[betajaen]

Alright, I pieced together what has been posted here, and came up with this draft:

Legal mumbo jumbo
-------------------------------

Please read and understand the following terms and conditions before submitting your registration application

By accessing “NxOgre.org” (hereinafter “we”, “us”, “our”, “NxOgre.org”, “http://www.nxogre.org”), you agree to be legally bound by the following terms. We may change these at any time and we’ll do our utmost in informing you, though it would be prudent to review this regularly yourself as your continued usage of “NxOgre.org” after changes mean you agree to be legally bound by these terms as they are updated and/or amended.

You agree not to post any abusive, obscene, vulgar, slanderous, hateful, threatening, sexually-orientated or any other material that may violate any laws be it of your country, the country where “NxOgre.org” is hosted or International Law. Doing so may lead to you being immediately and permanently banned, with notification of your Internet Service Provider if deemed required by us. The IP address of all posts are recorded to aid in enforcing these conditions. You agree that “NxOgre.org” have the right to remove, edit or move any page at any time should we see fit.

You agree that all posted content will be licenced under the GNU Free Documentation Licence[1]. All source code, media and images posted by you will be in the public domain. You also understand that your posted content may be edited, deleted or moved by other users or moderators at a later time.

As a user you agree to any information you have entered to being stored in a database. While this information will not be disclosed to any third party without your consent, “NxOgre.org” shall be held responsible for any hacking attempt that may lead to the data being compromised. You understand that the software at NxOgre.org will assign a single cookie to your web-browser whilst you have an active user session. The function is only to identify you and has no personal data attached to it.

If you do not agree to be legally bound by all of the following terms then cancel your submission for a new user account then leave this website.

[1] http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html
[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_Domain

The first sentence is wrong though, it implies that the T&C is for all visitors of the website, where it should be all users who edit the wiki. I'll have to clarify that, and describe the difference in there. Overall I think it's quite concise and straight to the point.

[jacmoe]

Looks good.

By becoming a member/contributor of .. maybe?

[Wretched_Wyx]

Well can't we think of T&C's much like a license for software/code, or a ToA (terms of agreement)? If that's the case, you should be able to simply make your own 'lite' and 'to-the-point' T&C. If people sign up, and agree to it... then they are bound by it(?). At least that was always my impression of how it worked.

[betajaen]

Okay, I settled with this:

By becoming a user (also known as a “user”, “moderator” or “contributor”) of “NxOgre.org” (hereinafter “we”, “us”, “our”, “NxOgre.org”, “http://www.nxogre.org”), you agree to be legally bound by the following terms. We may change these at any time and we’ll do our utmost in informing you, though it would be prudent to review this regularly yourself as your continued usage of “NxOgre.org” after changes mean you agree to be legally bound by these terms as they are updated and/or amended.

You agree not to post any abusive, obscene, vulgar, slanderous, hateful, threatening, sexually-orientated or any other material that may violate the Terms and Conditions of the “NxOgre.org hosting provider, violate any laws be it of your country, the United States where “NxOgre.org” is hosted or International Law. Doing so may lead to you being immediately and permanently banned, with notification of your Internet Service Provider if deemed required by us. The IP address of all posts are recorded to aid in enforcing these conditions. You agree that “NxOgre.org” have the right to remove, edit or move any page at any time should we see fit.

You agree that all posted content will be licenced under the GNU Free Documentation Licence[2]. All source code, images and other media posted by you will be in the public domain[3]. You also understand that your posted content may be edited, deleted or moved by other contributors or moderators at a later time.

As a contributor you agree to any information you have entered to being stored in a database. While this information will not be disclosed to any third party without your consent, “NxOgre.org” shall not be held responsible for any hacking attempt that may lead to the data being compromised. You understand that the software at NxOgre.org will assign a single cookie to your web-browser whilst you have an active session. The function is only to identify you and has no personal data attached to it.

If you agree and fully understand these terms and conditions, then click here, otherwise if you do not agree to be legally bound by all of the following terms then cancel your submission by leaving this website or clicking the "do not create my new user account" at the bottom of this webpage.

[1] http://www.nxogre.org/TermsAndConditions
[2] http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html
[3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_Domain

The website won't be live for at least a week, so if I find problems with it. I can fix it then.