The most core principle to Vaxia, in and out of character, is the balance of the 3 F's: fun, freedom and fairness.

The words are self-explanatory, but it's the order that matters:

1. Fun - The general enjoyment of the members
2. Freedom - The freedom to do what you like, as long as it doesn't hurt other people's fun or freedom
3. Fairness - The leveling stick that will keep anyone from getting the short end of the stick in site matters

We have a lot of rules and policies in place that ensure fairness, but notice that it's at the bottom of the list. Sometimes, if something is fun and doesn't negatively impact the fun and freedom of others, the rules matter a little less. The rules and guidelines are supposed to be something that ensures everyone gets their equal share of the fun here, they should never become like a weight around your neck, or an excuse to level things for leveling's sake. Fairness is valuable insofar as it protects people's fun, and it should be considered, but it shouldn't be the guiding star for how we operate day to day.

That should be guided by what we find fun :)

Think of this like a Venn diagram. You want to target that triangle where all three are part of whatever you're doing. But if you've got to pick which direction to go outside of that triangle - go with Fun.

These Terms and Conditions are valid across all Vaxia/Untold Paths projects, as stated below. Vaxia/Untold Paths reserves the right to change these terms and conditions without warning at any time.

Membership

Vaxia/Untold Paths reserves the right to approve and reject membership applications at its sole discretion.

Vaxia/Untold Paths reserves the right to promote, demote and remove members at any time. IP logs, Remote Hosts and all available info will be collected, displayed and used at Administration's discretion.

Contributions

Material submitted to untoldpaths.com, such as characters, setting information, and other text contributions are considered to be released under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) license.

Vaxia/Untold Paths and it's members are free to:

Share — copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format
Adapt — remix, transform, and build upon the material

The author/licensor cannot revoke these freedoms as long as we follow the license terms.

Under the following terms:

Attribution — We must give appropriate credit, provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made. You may do so in any reasonable manner, but not in any way that suggests the licensor endorses you or your use.

Non-commercial — We may not use the material for commercial purposes.

Share Alike — If we remix, transform, or build upon the material, we must distribute our contributions under the same license as the original.

No additional restrictions — We may not apply legal terms or technological measures that legally restrict others from doing anything the license permits.

For more information see here: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/
And the license here: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/legalcode

By submitting the material, the author declares him/her self legally capable to submit the material, and fully responsible in the case of such contribution resulting in copyright/legal issues in detriment of Vaxia.

Protecting the privacy of our members is of great importance for us.

Vaxia, collects information (characters, and any contact information) voluntarily submitted by its players at the time of enrollment. This information is never released to any third party, and it remains in storage for Vaxia game-related-only purposes. Most of this information can be erased at the time the player leaves Vaxia, upon the player's request - for story continuity purposes we aren't going to be able to strip every mention of your character out of the site RP archives. But we can certainly forget your screen-name, email, and other settings if you would like. It can be seen in the player account page, and modified by the player at any time.

Vaxia may email its members at their given email address to inform them of important changes in their membership, including, but not limited to new character notifications, player-privilege removal, etc.

We do use cookies on this site to keep you logged in (that's how the Internet works guys), and we use them to keep track of which character has which character settings for image and text color settings to make it easier for you to play without thinking about what your settings are. Otherwise we try to keep most of our data on our end, and yours on yours.

Passwords are stored as hashes on our end. Think one-way encryption. Not even the admin can get them back out of the system for you. That's why we send a password reset link instead of sending you your password.

We encourage you to change them regularly and not to reuse your passwords!!

Use something like Last Pass if you can. (It's free and it really does help: LastPass ). If not, please consider the principles XKCD so kindly laid out for us all:

* Use a longer password over a shorter one.
* If you can't remember a unique password for each site, at least use a different one for the important ones: Bank, Gmail, etc.
* If you can - use a pass*phrase* over a password. It's easier to remember, and harder to crack.
* COMPLAIN to any website that can send you your password. They don't need to store that information to be able to log you in.
* And COMPLAIN LOUDLY if they send you that password in email. Email is terrifyingly insecure for something as important as that.

It's a dangerous Net out there guys, be safe.

If you haven't read this little book I highly recommend it. It's a quick, easy read and more than worth its weight in gold, written by Don Miguel Ruiz. For the most part, the ideas are not new (in fact, they're ancient), but they are no less relevant today here in Vaxia.

I will list each of The Four Agreements and the way I believe those agreements can be applied to Vaxia. The explanations are in my own words, so don't hold Ruiz to them.

Be impeccable with your word.

Simply put, be free from blame with what you say and promise. Let your words have integrity. Do not speak ill of yourself and do not speak ill of others.

Don't take things personally.

Life's too short. Even if something really is directed at you as a personal attack, you still don't have to take it personally. Who knows what prompted the other person to make such an attack? Maybe their own pain or ignorance. You do not need to fuel that fire with your own pain at the attack. Put the fire out by looking at situations as objectively as you can.

Don't make assumptions.

Get the whole story, or as much of it as you can. Don't jump to conclusions or make judgement calls without all the facts, and be ready to change your opinion if new facts emerge. Don't think because something was true in the past for someone that it must still be true. Don't imagine that because you have half the story that you have the entire account. Our assumptions can lead to unnecessarily hurt feelings that stem from coming to incorrect conclusions.

Do your best.

Perhaps the simplest in theory and the most difficult in practice. One's best varies from day to day and may be quite different when you're sick or angry than when you are in top form. When sick and angry, maybe my best is simply to avoid making negative comments in Limbo and not lashing out at someone when I get upset. And that's okay, that's my best, I can do that and be glad. But on a good day my best might be really helping the site, helping new people find their way around, making the site more enjoyable through roleplay and sessions, or what have you.

To us, as a community, Vaxia is our world. And we as a community work to keep it one we always want to come back to. I love what I see in Vaxia today and I'm glad to be a part of it.

If we can all keep to these agreements, I think we can help others feel the same way.

The Code of Conduct or in other words, how we like to behave and treat each other on this site, and in Vaxia.

This document defines how players must conduct themselves while on the Vaxia site. It applies to all areas on the site, including the Vaxia and Sirian game worlds, as well as any chat rooms, forums, wiki, artwork libraries, and private messages offered through the site. Activity conducted off-site (such as via email, chat, in-person, etc.) may also be considered a violation of the Vaxia Code of Conduct and grounds for disciplinary action if it is conducted between Vaxia players, and believed to be in response to or an extension of actions conducted on Vaxia. It is a series of guidelines and etiquette that we hope will be followed. All visitors on the site are expected to follow the code of conduct. Failure to do so may result in disciplinary action, including notations, strikes, temporary suspensions, permanent bans, other corrective action, or worse.

This list is not comprehensive. However this will cover the most obvious points. When in doubt, be considerate of each other, try to use your best judgement, and ask ahead of time. If it would hurt you if someone did the same action, don't do it. If you think that it would harm someone or ruin their fun here, don't do it. If a player asks you not to do something or to stop doing it, please respect that. If you are uncertain whether another player will be upset, ask politely and respect the answer.

Inappropriate behavior includes (but is not limited to):

- Attacking other players (i.e., verbal assault, slander, threats, etc.).

- Harassing other players (unsolicited sexual advances, hounding, gossiping about, etc. whether in or out of character, directed at the player or at the player’s characters without consent IC or OOC, etc).

- Intentionally disrupting sessions OOC.

- Initiating or continuing a role-play session with a player who has stated OOC that they do not wish to participate, regardless of session content.

- ‘Flaming’ or ‘Griefing’ other players.

- Blackmailing or extorting other players.

- Using Private Messages or off-site messages to harm another player.

- Falsely posing as a lead or mediator for any reason.

- Manipulating of others (overt or covert aggression, baiting or goading, guilt-tripping, chase-me behaviors, verbal abuse, or other emotional manipulation techniques).

- Exploiting/cheating the game system/website.

- Defacing the Wiki or any other part of the website.

- Linking to/displaying pornography or other offensive, illegal, or harmful content on site.

- Posting sexually explicit, racist, or excessively violent content in publicly accessible locations, regardless of format.

- Non-compliance to formal requests/instruction from a Lead when they are acting in their role as department lead or as site admin.

- Attempts to access or copy another user’s password, or attempts to access another user’s account.

- Maintaining multiple user accounts without specific authorization by the site administration.

Any other unspecified action that brings undue harm to an individual, or the community, or the web site may also be punishable with a yellow strike or even a red depending on the severity. Any of these actions are grounds for disciplinary action. Not all activities are considered equal transgressions. Disciplinary action may vary based on the severity and frequency of the offense, and will be conducted by the rules documented by the Social Department

If the appropriateness/perceived harm of an action is under dispute, a site Lead is authorized to act immediately based on the perceived situation. If requested by any involved party, the Social Department will review and vote upon the action and determine appropriate disciplinary measures (if any). Strikes for such unspecified actions ought to be voted upon by the Social department, but the Leads don't need to wait for the result of the vote if they feel it is irresponsible to not act quickly. If their decision is then voted down, the outcome will be reversed.

Returning players, please note: We no longer follow the previous Vaxia policy of "negative in private, positive in public”.

See also: The Four Agreements General Guidelines

As a non-profit site, Vaxia falls neatly into the safe zone of American Fair Use legislation of images:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_use

"In determining whether the use made of a work in any particular case is a fair use the factors to be considered shall include:

• the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes;
• the nature of the copyrighted work;
• the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; and
• the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work."

In general, our character and account images fall well within these boundaries. To help guarantee that that continues to be the case:

• Images should be cropped where possible so that only a portion is used (say, the face on a portrait). The less of the total work is included, the safer we are in terms of Fair Use guidelines.
• Attribution (author name and link, whenever possible) should be given in the details for the picture, like before. That way we avoid impeding the ability of the artwork's creator to profit by it, if they see fit.

In other words, we can now use a wider range of art or photos on site without explicit author permission, though that's no reason not to give credit where it's due (see above).