Terms and Conditions
Effective date: September 28, 2010
NaNoWriMo.org is provided by the Office of Letters and Light free of charge to any user who agrees to be bound by the terms and conditions of this Agreement. Please read this Agreement carefully before accessing NaNoWriMo.org or using any of its features. By accessing NaNoWriMo.org or using any of its features, you agree to be legally bound by the terms and conditions hereof. If you do not agree to be bound by any of such terms and conditions, you may not access NaNoWriMo.org or use any of its features. The Office of Letters and Light reserves the right to change the terms and conditions hereof without prior notice at any time and any such change shall be effective immediately upon posting the changed Agreement on NaNoWriMo.org. The effective date indicated at the top of this page will be updated to indicate that changes have been made. Whenever changes are made, registered users will also be asked to review and agree to the new terms upon login.
Right on.
FORUMS
Our forums (message boards) are designed to foster communication between participants. As the one place where NaNoWriMo participants from all over the world can gather to chat, cajole, and procrastinate, the forums are designed to keep spirits (and word counts) soaring. Even if it feels a little scary at first, we ask you to dive right in.
That said, there are certain kinds of posts we do not allow on the forums. Anyone posting abusive, sexually explicit, hateful, or threatening material (or any other stuff that may violate any applicable laws), will have their NaNoWriMo account deleted and will be banned from the site.
We will also file a formal complaint with the offending party's internet service provider, and, if we deem it necessary, with their local police department. The IP address of all posts is recorded to aid in enforcing these conditions.
Several of our forums are G-rated. These will be clearly indicated with a "sun" icon, and are approved for all-ages. We ask that when posting in them, you refrain from using curse words and avoid discussions of violence or sexuality.
Outside of the G-rated forums, strong language is acceptable only in the body of posts or the body of your excerpts, so long as it's not used in a hateful or attacking way. We do ask, however, that all participants refrain from using curse words in their Usernames, displayed novel titles, and subjects of their posts. Filtering software in schools and libraries often renders entire threads invisible when it detects a single instance of foul language, so one expletive-filled Username can make a forum unreadable to participants using public computers.
We will remove posts we deem harassing or offensive, but we will not be held liable for anything you stumble across that may anger or offend you. By signing up for NaNoWriMo, you are acknowledging that all posts made to our forums express the views and opinions of the author, and not the administrators, moderators, or webmaster (except for posts by these people).
You also agree that the webmaster, administrator, and moderators of this forum have the right to remove, edit, move, or close any topic at any time should they see fit. As a user, you agree to any information you have entered above being stored in a database. While this information will not be disclosed to any third party, the webmaster, administrator, and moderators cannot be held responsible for any security breach that may lead to the data being compromised. The site is also crawled and cached by many major search engines, please be mindful that anything you post on the forums is essentially public. Be wary of posting other personal information such as your address, school, place of work, or phone number for this reason.
Before you post in our forums, please read our Codes of Conduct, linked in very wee print at the bottom of every page of NaNoWriMo.org.
COOKIES AND EMAIL ADDRESSES
NaNoWriMo uses cookies to store information on your local computer. These cookies serve only to make using the site more convenient for you. Your email address is used by this site to confirm your registration details and password, and to send out NaNoWriMo pep talks, newsletters, site notifications, and other NaNoWriMo-related messages. We do not share or sell participants' information, and your email address will not be made visible to others.
LITERARY PREDATORS, MARKETING, AND SELF-PROMOTION
We recommend all participants be very skeptical of anyone they meet on the site who claims to be an agent or publisher. Especially if that person asks for an upfront payment in exchange for services. If you are approached by someone wielding a too-good-to-be-true deal, please let us know, and we'll investigate.
We have two forums for marketing and self-promotion: "Special offers from NaNo sponsors" and "Marketing, self-promotion and stuff for sale." In the "Special Offers from NaNo sponsors" forum, approved NaNoWriMo corporate sponsors may post directly about their products and services. In the "Marketing, self-promotion, and stuff for sale" forum, all NaNoWriMo participants may post. Apart from approved NaNoWriMo corporate sponsors who are posting in the "Special Offers" forum, only NaNoWriMo participants and members of the media looking to interview NaNoWriMo participants may post in the NaNoWriMo forums. If you are not a NaNoWriMo participant and would like to offer a special discount on your product or services to participants, please contact our staff with your offer instead, and allow us to post the information on your behalf.
UPLOADING YOUR NOVEL TO OUR SITE
During the event, you will be given the opportunity to upload a version of your novel to our site for word-counting purposes. All drafts uploaded to our site are counted and deleted immediately by a computer program. We do not retain or read copies of any text uploaded. To protect yourself from fears of text-thievery, though, we ask you to scramble your novel before sending it to us. Instructions for easy scrambling will be provided on the page you use to upload your novel.
DISCLAIMER OF WARRANTIES
You hereby agree that the use of NaNoWriMo.org and its features is at your own risk. NaNoWriMo.org is provided on an "as is," "as available" basis without warranties of any kind, express or implied, including any implied warranty of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose. The Office of Letters and Light shall not be responsible for any damages suffered by you as a result of any delay, interruption, termination, or other failure or cessation of NaNoWriMo.org.
LIMITATION OF LIABILITIES
You further agree that, to the fullest extent permissible under applicable law, the Office of Letters and Light shall not be liable for any direct, special, incidental, indirect, punitive, or consequential damages or for lost profits, business, or revenues, arising out of, or in connection with, the use of NaNoWriMo.org or its features (or the inability to use the same), including any claim attributable to errors, omissions or other inaccuracies in the content appearing in NaNoWriMo.org, whether suffered by you or any party claiming rights derived from you.
All User Content originated or distributed by you shall comply with all applicable laws respecting the content of published matter (in electronic form or any other media now or hereafter existing), including laws respecting obscenity, pornography, defamation, copyright, trademark, and other intellectual or intangible property rights. You agree to indemnify and hold harmless the Office of Letters and Light from any claim, expense, loss, or damage, including reasonable attorneys' fees, arising out of or resulting from your use of the NaNoWriMo.org website or participation in any of its events, including resulting from the publication, distribution, or redistribution of your User Content or the use of such User Content by any person (including, but not limited to liability resulting from any Harmful Code).
We reserve the right to terminate accounts and account access to this website for any reason, without obligation to remove associated user generated content. You acknowledge and agree that we may preserve or remove any content generated by you and posted on our website.
By accessing this website, you agree to these terms of usage and limitations of warranty. In particular, you agree not to use this data to allow, enable, or otherwise make possible, dissemination or collection of this data, in part or in its entirety, for any purpose, such as the transmission of unsolicited advertising and solicitations of any kind, including spam. You further agree not to use this data to enable high-volume, automated, or robotic electronic processes designed to collect or compile this data for any purpose, including mining this data for your own personal or commercial purposes. Any use of this data for any other purpose is expressly forbidden without the prior written permission of the Office of Letters and Light.
Okay. The boring part is over. Let the writing adventure begin!
