We believe that freedom of expression is important and censoring should be avoided when at all possible. We also recognize that tensions inevitably arise online and from time to time inflammatory topics surface. Keep in mind that it is possible to disagree civilly. Hosts will make every effort to deal with these tensions, and encourage all users to participate in conferences and discussions peaceably. We hope that you, our users, will create discussions about appropriate norms. If instances arise where the norms the group creates are not sufficient, if modeling good communication fails, and if E-mail fails, we will delete or lock accounts. This last strategy is something we take seriously and never do lightly - it is because of our commitment to maintaining a community where people can have conversations.

We provide many places within the Electric Minds community to discuss the craft and art of online conversation. We believe in the axiom "tools, not rules," so rather than tell you what to do, we give you the ability to do things, and let you decide how and when to do them. For example, we provide you with the "Filter User" function, which you can use to make the words of a specific user disappear from your view without censoring them. Please visit the "The Technical Side" conference in the Electric Minds community to learn how to use this tool and for other information about navigating the Venice Web Communities System interface used by Electric Minds.

Message copyright and ownership - "You Own Your Own Words"

When you post a message to Electric Minds, or to any community hosted on the Electric Minds server, you grant Electric Minds the right to display your message on the page on which it was posted by you. It may also be displayed on other pages on the site, or be reachable through searches or other means, but it will always and only be here, on the Electric Minds server, and we have no intention of ever reusing, reprinting, or recreating your message anywhere else. You lose no copyright to your words, and you are not beholden to us in any way, shape, or form.

By posting here, you also grant us (the moderator(s) of the conference to which you post, the host and cohost(s) of the community in which that conference is located, or the administrators of the site) the right to remove your message if we choose not to want it here. We do not edit messages, except in extreme cases of messages which include HTML or other characters that damage the usability of the site. We do remove messages that are inappropriate or offensive to the admins. However, in the case of messages or message attachments that contain copyrighted information or data that has been distributed in violation of copyright, we are required by law to delete these messages if and when the legitimate copyright holder contacts us, gives us the name and/or type of information that was posted and the location it was posted to on Electric Minds, and requests that it be removed. This policy is the direct result of the United States Digital Millennium Copyright Act, and Electric Minds is not responsible for this law or its effects.

Electric Minds is not responsible for the accuracy or integrity of the information contained in any messages posted to the site, and will not be held liable for any damages of any kind incurred as the result of any message posted on the Electric Minds site. Some messages and site content may contain links to sites on the Internet and World Wide Web other than the Electric Minds site itself. Electric Minds is not responsible for the content of these other sites, and will not be held liable for any of their content.

Privacy Policy

One of the most important of those is your E-mail address, which must be a functional Internet E-mail address. This E-mail address is used by us to send a "confirmation number" that confirms that that E-mail box is owned by you before granting you full privileges on the site. We also use it to send you "password reminder" messages at your request. It may also be used by other registered site users to send you "quick E-mail" messages, as a convenience. E-mail may also be sent to all members of a community, or all participants in a conference or topic, by an administrator of the community, conference, or topic; each of these E-mail messages contains these instructions as to how to stop receiving these mass E-mailed notices:

To stop receiving mass E-mailed notices from all Electric Minds community and conference hosts, visit Electric Minds at http://www.electricminds.org, click on the "Profile" link in the top bar, check the box labeled "Don't send me mass E-mail from community/conference hosts," and click Update to save this preference.

Other personal information is only used to form your "user profile" page on the Electric Minds site. We have no way of verifying the accuracy of this information, so you may enter anything you like. Beyond the minimum required information, which is clearly identified on the account creation form, you may fill in the fields or not, at your discretion.

To prevent unauthorized access, to maintain data accuracy, and to ensure the correct use of information, we have put in place appropriate physical, electronic, and managerial procedures to safeguard and secure the information we collect online.

Electric Minds will, in particular, not collect or maintain any personal information from individuals that are known to us to be under the age of 13 years, and we do not design or structure this site to attract anyone under the age of 13 years. Any account that is created by a person that we later determine to be under the age of 13 will be deleted. This policy is a direct consequence of the United States Children's Online Privacy Protection Act, and Electric Minds is not responsible for this law or its effects.

You can access all your account information by logging into the Electric Minds site and clicking on the "Profile" link in the upper bar of the site. You can use the same page to modify, correct, or remove any information in your profile, except that you may not remove any information marked as "required." (You must be logged in to access your profile information.)

Electric Minds also logs "audit" information about certain actions that are performed on the site; these audit records contain a timestamp, the user ID of the user performing the operation, the community in which the operation was performed (where applicable), the Internet Protocol (IP) address from which the request originated, and information identifying the specific nature of the audited action. These audit records are accessible only to system administrators, and to community hosts (for actions performed within their community only). They are intended to monitor the site operation and to provide administrators and community hosts with a means of tracking actions that cause permanent modifications to the site or its contents, including modifications that result in loss of data. They may also be used to trace disruptive or malicious users to specific IP addresses.

Use of Cookies

1. When you access the Electric Minds site, the Venice software uses a cookie (with the name "JSESSIONID") to associate your browser with a "session" on the Electric Minds server, for the duration of your session. This cookie is non-persistent, meaning it is not recorded to your computer's hard disk, but kept in the memory of your browser, and it disappears when your browser session is closed. If you turn off cookies in your browser, or your browser does not support cookies, the Venice software can compensate by embedding the session ID information in the URLs you click on in the site's pages; this compensation may not be perfect, however.
2. If you elect to have the site remember your login (by explicitly checking the "Remember me for next time" check box on the "Log In" dialog), the Venice software will send you a persistent cookie (with the name "VeniceAuth") that contains authentication information to allow Venice to recognize you on future site visits. This cookie, in particular, does not contain your password; it uses a different authentication mechanism. It is a persistent cookie, meaning that it is saved to your hard disk, but it has a maximum lifespan of one year from the date on which it was issued, and you may remove it at any time by clicking the "Log Off" link in the top bar of the site (which logs you off and removes the cookie; you may then log back in without clicking "Remember me for next time," if desired). If you turn off persistent cookies in your browser, or your browser does not support persistent cookies, you will not be able to use this feature, but that will not affect the rest of the site's usability.