A wise network owner once had just one sentence in his TOS. It was rather effective and it is worth quoting.
“Don’t be a meanie and we will get along, sweetie.”
Note: F4L’s TOS contains different sections that can be appended at anytime.
- Community Guidelines
- General Guidelines
- Mature Content Policy
- Art Policy
- Digital Millennium Copyright Act Policy
- Network Usage and Content Agreement
Community Guidelines:
Following are some general guidelines for the Furry4Life (F4L) community.
Furry4Life (F4L) does not intend to censor messages based on the opinions expressed within posts, but will enforce the policies outlined here on the network. F4L reserves the right to remove, modify or move posts upon discretion and without explanation. Please contact the F4L team if you do not understand any of the rules, guidelines or policies outlined below.
A status of Suspension or Removal (Banned Member) of your profile is a definite and direct consequence of not adhering to these guidelines. In addition to the rules posted here, by being a member of this community you agree to read any additional area or section rules on the F4L Network that you participate in.
By using Furry4Life, you further agree to abide by all of the policies set forth by this Furry4Life Terms of Service (TOS).
Furry4Life Moderators, Administrators, Managers and Community Leaders will assume members have read said terms and will not take ignorance of any rules as an excuse for not following the rules, policies, and guidelines outlined here and/or in the forum specific rules.
General Guidelines
F4L takes the "Be Polite" rule very seriously. The job of our staff is to make sure the network is a comfortable place for all members, and that includes themselves as well! Any member who is intentionally unpleasant or disruptive and participates in the following can be banned without warning:
- Disrespectful comments
- Rude or impolite comments, jokes, or discussions
- Personal attacks of any kind made to any member
- Racial slurs or comments of any kind
- Profanity of any kind
- Harmful, hateful, spiteful, trollish (trolling, troll-like), mean spirited, disrespectful, or adult worded comments and terms, either in the chat room, on comment walls (your own included), blogs, forums, groups or anywhere else on the network, in context to be negative toward any member (staff included)
- Do not Spam members with other websites. You may promote other furry websites or networks, within moderation.
- No soliciting for money for personal needs. You may post about commissions if you are an artist. However you shouldn't be on here begging for cash to pay your rent, video games, streaming video services, etc...
- Also note, if you SPAM our members in any manner, your account will be disabled.
- Your account is yours alone. You are responsible for any activity created with it. DO NOT share the use of your profile or password with others. If you choose to ignore this important restriction your account may be suspended.
- You may not post on behalf of any banned member in any public manner.
- This includes all forums, chat, profiles, private messages, signatures, and e-mail features.
- You may not link, in any manner, to sites or images containing pornography, sexually explicit, gross violence, or that are determined by the Furry4Life team to be detrimental to the community.
- Any posts that encourage illegal activity will be removed and the account will be Suspended.
- You may not intentionally "trash" or "troll" (trolling) in another user's thread, violations may subject the acting account to suspension.
- One account per person. (We have features that allow you to change your username/URL/email/etc...)
- Any attempts to defraud or deceive our members will result in your account being suspended.
F4L welcomes constructive feedback, but will not tolerate excessive public posts offending or harassing the Furry4Life Staff. Keep feedback civil. F4L reserves the right to remove public posts debating these rules and/or a staff member’s enforcement of such without comment. Feedback on F4L is encouraged and you are invited to contact the team if you have any questions or concerns.
F4L reserves the right to modify and amend these terms at any time without notice. It is your responsibility to remain informed of current Furry4Life Network policies. Further F4L reserves the right to disable any account at any time for any reason and without notice. If there are any rules or policies you do not understand, please contact a team member for clarification.
Finally, any abuse towards the Furry4Life team, in any form, may result in immediate suspension or a freeze of your account.
Mature Content Policy
Any material uploaded to Furry4Life must follow these guidelines. In short, Adult or Mature content of any kind is not allowed on the network. If you upload content that contains images not suitable for children, needs to be edited so that body parts are blurred out or covered up, or anything that is sexually suggestive in nature, the content will be removed.
Users should be aware that Content found not following these guidelines will be subject to deletion immediately. Content that is not allowed:
- Pornographic
- Nudity (Female genitalia and nipples are not allowed. Male genitalia is not allowed.)
- Mature
- Containing images blatantly intended to sexually arouse the viewer
- Unlawful
- Harmful; Threatening; Abusive; Harassing; Defamatory; Libelous; Invasive of another's privacy; Harms minors in any way Generally Offensive.
- Fetishes
- Violent
- Gore
Any images or videos reported and/or found not following these guidelines will be reviewed and appropriate action will be taken with or without notice given to the user. This policy includes, but is not limited to, User Icons, Gallery Images, Profile Content, Wall Posts, Group Posts, Forum Posts and Links in the Chat Room. Continued abuse may result in a Suspension or Removal from the network.
You agree not to post, email, or otherwise make available any Network, Code, or Content that:
- Is unlawful, harmful, threatening, abusive, harassing, defamatory, libelous, invasive of another's privacy, or harms minors in any way
- Is adult in nature. Sent publicly or privately, this is not allowed on the network or any of the third party services administrated by Furry4Life. Furs under the age of 18 found to be in possession of adult content, real or artistic may be subject to a ban until they turn 18. Furs over the age of 18 found to be distributing or creating adult content for the purpose to give to a minor will be banned and reported to appropriate authorities.
- Harasses, degrades, intimidates or is hateful toward an individual or group of individuals
- Impersonates a F4L staff member, User or falsely states or otherwise misrepresents your affiliation with a person or entity
- Includes personal or identifying information about another person without that person's explicit consent
- Is false, deceptive, misleading, deceitful, or constitutes “bait and switch”
- Infringes any patent, trademark, trade secret, copyright or other proprietary rights of any party, or Content that you do not have a right to make available under any law or under contractual or fiduciary relationships
- Creates, sends, or enables anything that constitutes or contains “chain letters,” “pyramid schemes,” or any advertisement that you are prohibited by law from sending
- Constitutes or contains any form of advertising or solicitation if (1) posted in Content; or (2) emailed to Users who have requested not to be contacted about other services, products or commercial interests
- Advertises any illegal services or the sale of any items the sale of which is prohibited or restricted by applicable law, including without limitation items the sale of which is prohibited or regulated by applicable law
- Contains software viruses or any other computer code, files or programs designed to interrupt, destroy or limit the functionality of any computer software or hardware or telecommunications equipment
- Disrupts the normal flow of dialogue with an excessive number of messages (flooding attack) to the Furry4Life Network, or that otherwise negatively affects other Users' ability to use the Furry4Life Network
- Employs misleading email or IP addresses, or forged headers or otherwise manipulated identifiers in order to disguise the origin of Content transmitted through the Furry4Life Network
Additionally, you agree not to:
- “Stalk” or otherwise harass anyone
- Collect Personal Data about other Users for commercial or unlawful purposes
- Use automated means, including spiders, robots, crawlers, data mining tools, or the like to download data from the Furry4Life Network - except for Internet search engines (e.g. Google) and non-commercial public archives (e.g. archive.org) that comply with our robots.txt file, or “well-behaved” web services/RSS/Atom clients. We reserve the right to define what we mean by “well-behaved”
- Post non-local or otherwise irrelevant Content, repeatedly post the same or similar Content or otherwise impose an unreasonable or disproportionately large load on Furry4Life Network’s infrastructure
- Attempt to gain unauthorized access to Furry4Life Network's computer systems or engage in any activity that disrupts, diminishes the quality of, interferes with the performance of, or impairs the functionality of, the Furry4Life Network
- Develop, invoke, or utilize any code to disrupt, diminish the quality of, interfere with the performance of, or impair the functionality of the Furry4Life Network
Note: F4L will not allow is content that illegal. (ie: Drugs, Rape, Abuse, Murder.. etc..)
Art Policy
The Furry Fandom relies heavily on it's artists. They are the ones that bring our characters and creations to life, weather it be visually, or by a craft such as fursuit design. When you use art from an artist that you did not pay for or receive as a commission, gift, trade, request, or permission, you are stealing that artwork.
Furry4Life is not an art gallery social network (ie: FurAffinity, InkBunny, SoFurry, Weasyl). When you upload artwork, you are agreeing to the fact that you have the right to upload said art work. This includes and is not limited to instances where you credit yourself, claim that you are the owner of the art or the characters in the art, or claim that the art represents who you are, fursuit images.
In instances where art theft is suspected, the users involved, and artists will be contacted to solve the issue. If found that a user does not have permission to use the artwork, the artwork will be removed and the user will be notified.
If asked, a lot of artists will agree to let you use art in forums like this, it is free marketing for them and helps them generate business. So you may be pleasantly surprised when asking for permission! Don't be afraid to do so. After getting permission, they may forget to ask you to give them credit... So always credit the artist, and give users a link to the artist in your profile or within the description of the image. They are being generous in letting you use their work, so help them out!
This is something Furries take very seriously. Art theft will not be tolerated.
Photo Galleries
The same goes for art posted in Photo Galleries too! If an artist claims that you uploaded artwork that you do not own to your F4L gallery, it will be removed. Remember, F4L, while art is allowed, is not an art gallery.
Digital Millennium Copyright Act Policy
"Furry4Life" is an Online Service Provider under Title II of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, 17 U.S.C. Section 512 ("DMCA"). "Furry4Life" respects the legitimate rights of copyright owners, and has adopted an efficient notice and take-down procedure as required by the DMCA and described herein. This policy is intended to guide copyright owners in utilizing that procedure, and also to guide webmasters in restoring access to websites that are disabled due to mistake. Notice to Owners of Copyrighted Works The DMCA provides a legal procedure by which you can request any Online Service Provider to disable access to a website where your copyrighted work(s) are appearing without your permission. There are two parts to the legal procedure: (1) Writing a Proper DMCA Notice, and (2) Sending the Proper DMCA Notice to "Furry4Life" Designated Agent. How To Write a Proper DMCA notice, please provide the following information: 1. Identify yourself as either: 1. The owner of a copyrighted work(s), or 2. A person "authorized to act on behalf of the owner of an exclusive right that is allegedly infringed." 2. State your contact information, including your TRUE NAME, street address, telephone number, and email address. 3. Identify the copyrighted work that you believe is being infringed, or if a large number of works are appearing at a single website, a representative list of the works. 4. Identify the material that you claim is infringing your copyrighted work, to which you are requesting that "Furry4Life" disable access over the World Wide Web. 5. Identify the location of the material on the World Wide Web by providing "information reasonably sufficient to permit "Furry4Life" to locate the material." 6. State that you have "a good faith belief that use of the material in the manner complained of is not authorized by the copyright owner, its agents, or the law." 7. State that the information in the notice is accurate, under penalty of perjury. Sign the notice with either a physical or electronic signature. Sending The Proper DMCA Notice to the Designated Agent To exercise your DMCA rights, you must send your Proper DMCA Notice to the following agent designated by "Furry4Life" (the "Designated Agent".) The contact information for "Furry4Life" Designated Agent is: "Furry4Life Administrator [email protected]"
- You will not create an account for anyone other than yourself
- You will not create more than one personal account.
- If we disable your account, you will not create another one without our permission. This will be see as ban evasion and will be moderated as such.
- You will not use your personal timeline primarily for your own monetary gain, and will use a Furry4Life Ad page for such purposes.
- You will not use Furry4Life if you are under 13.
- You will not use Furry4Life if you are a convicted sex offender.
- You will keep your information up-to-date.
- You will not share your password, let anyone else access your account, or do anything else that might jeopardize the security of your account.
- You will not impersonate other furries in the furry community, not limited to Furry4Life. We understand unique names can sometimes be redundant, but the character descriptions and images should be that of your own that you have created (an orginal) or one that you have purchased and now own.
- You will not transfer your account to anyone without first getting our written permission.
- If you select a username or similar identifier for your account that is a copywriten property, we reserve the right to remove or reclaim it if we believe it is appropriate.