MEpedia:Terms of use

Our Terms of Use

1. MEAction (“we” or “us”), is a nonprofit charitable organization whose mission is to empower and engage people with ME, CFS, and related conditions. To support our community, we provide the essential infrastructure and organizational framework for the maintenance of our project MEpedia.

We welcome you (“you” or the “user”) as a reader, editor, author, or contributor of MEpedia, and we encourage you to join the MEpedia community. Before you participate, however, we ask that you please read and agree to the following Terms of Use (“Terms of Use”).

Overview

These Terms of Use tell you about our services, our relationship to you as a user, and the rights and responsibilities that guide us both. We want you to know that we host informational content, all of which is contributed and made possible by users like yourself. Generally we do not monitor or delete content (with the exception of policies like these Terms of Use or legal compliance). This means that editorial control is in the hands of you and your fellow users who create and manage the content. We merely host this content.

You are welcome to join as a contributor, editor, or author, but you should follow the policies and guidelines that govern MEpedia. Because we are dedicated to making content freely accessible to the public, we generally require that all content you contribute is available under a free license or in the public domain.

Please be aware that you are legally responsible for all of your contributions, edits, and re-use of our content under the laws of the United States of America and other applicable laws (which may include the laws where you live or where you view or edit content). This means it is important that you use caution when posting content. In light of this responsibility, we have some rules about what you cannot post, most of which is either for your own protection or for the protection of other users like yourself. Please keep in mind that the content we host is for general informational purposes only, so if you need expert advice for a particular question (such as medical, legal, or financial issues), you should seek the help of a licensed or qualified professional. We also include other important notices and disclaimers, so please read these Terms of Use in their entirety.

1. Our Services

1. MEAction's MEpedia project is dedicated to hosting informational content for the public free of charge. However, we act only as a hosting service, maintaining the infrastructure and organizational framework that allows our users to build MEpedia by contributing and editing content themselves. Because of our unique role, there are a couple of things you should be aware of when considering our relationship to you and the other users:

1. We do not generally take an active editorial role: Because MEpedia is collaboratively edited, all of the content that we host is provided by users like yourself, and we do not generally take an active editorial role. This means that we generally do not monitor or edit the content of the MEpedia, and we do not take any responsibility for this content. Similarly, we do not endorse any opinions expressed via our services, and we do not represent or guarantee the truthfulness, accuracy, or reliability of any submitted community content. Instead, we simply provide access to the content that your fellow users have contributed and edited, and intervene only when absolutely necessary.
2. You are responsible for your own actions: You are legally responsible for your edits and contributions on MEpedia, so for your own protection you should exercise caution and avoid contributing any content that may result in criminal or civil liability under any applicable laws. For clarity, applicable law includes at least the laws of the United States of America. Although we may not agree with such actions, we warn editors and contributors that authorities may seek to apply other country laws to you, including local laws where you live or where you view or edit content. We generally cannot offer any protection, guarantee, immunity or indemnification.

2. Privacy Policy

We ask that you review the terms of our Privacy Policy, so that you are aware of how we collect and use your information. Generally speaking, this information is only that which you have voluntarily provided to us, or that we gather in our routine running and maintenance of MEpedia. Because our services are used by people all over the world, personal information that we collect may be stored and processed in the United States of America or any other country in which we or our agents maintain facilities. By using our services, you consent to any such transfer of information outside your country.

3. Content We Host

1. You may find some material objectionable or erroneous: Because we provide a wide array of content that is produced or gathered by fellow users, you may encounter material that you find offensive, erroneous, misleading, mislabeled, or otherwise objectionable. We therefore ask that you use common sense and proper judgment when using our services.
2. Our content is for general informational purposes only: Although we host a great deal of information that may pertain to professional topics, this content is presented for general informational purposes only. It should not be taken as professional advice. Please seek independent professional counseling from someone who is licensed or qualified in the applicable area in lieu of acting on any information, opinion, or advice contained in MEpedia.

4. Refraining from Certain Activities

MEpedia only exists because of the vibrant community of users like you who collaborate to write, edit, and curate the content. We happily welcome your participation in this community. We encourage you to be civil and polite in your interactions with others in the community, to act in good faith, and to make edits and contributions aimed at furthering the core principles of MEpedia.

Certain activities, whether legal or illegal, may be harmful to other users and violate our policies and guidelines, and some activities may also subject you to liability. Therefore, for your own protection and for that of other users, you may not engage in such activities on our sites. These activities include:

Harassing and Abusing Others

• Engaging in harassment, threats, stalking, spamming, or vandalism; and
• Transmitting chain mail, junk mail, or spam to other users.

Violating the Privacy of Others

• Infringing the privacy rights of others under the laws of the United States of America or other applicable laws (which may include the laws where you live or where you view or edit content);
• Soliciting personally identifiable information for purposes of harassment, exploitation, violation of privacy, or any promotional or commercial purpose not explicitly approved by MEpedia; and
• Soliciting personally identifiable information from anyone under the age of 18 for an illegal purpose or violating any applicable law regarding the health or well-being of minors.

Engaging in False Statements, Impersonation, or Fraud

• Intentionally or knowingly posting content that constitutes libel or defamation;
• With the intent to deceive, posting content that is false or inaccurate;
• Attempting to impersonate another user or individual, misrepresenting your affiliation with any individual or entity, or using the username of another user with the intent to deceive; and
• Engaging in fraud.

Committing Infringement

• Infringing copyrights, trademarks, patents, or other proprietary rights under applicable law.

Misusing Our Services for Other Illegal Purposes

• Posting child pornography or any other content that violates applicable law concerning child pornography;
• Posting or trafficking in obscene material that is unlawful under applicable law; and
• Using the services in a manner that is inconsistent with applicable law.

Engaging in Disruptive and Illegal Misuse of Facilities

• Posting or distributing content that contains any viruses, malware, worms, Trojan horses, malicious code, or other device that could harm our technical infrastructure or system or that of our users;
• Engaging in automated uses of the site that are abusive or disruptive of the services and have not been approved by MEpedia;
• Disrupting the services by placing an undue burden on MEpedia or the networks or servers connected with MEpedia;
• Disrupting the services by inundating MEpedia with communications or other traffic that suggests no serious intent to use MEpedia for its stated purpose;
• Knowingly accessing, tampering with, or using any of our non-public areas in our computer systems without authorization; and
• Probing, scanning, or testing the vulnerability of any of our technical systems or networks unless all the following conditions are met:

• such actions do not unduly abuse or disrupt our technical systems or networks;
• such actions are not for personal gain (except for credit for your work);
• you report any vulnerabilities to us (or fix it yourself); and
• you do not undertake such actions with malicious or destructive intent.

Paid contributions without disclosure

These Terms of Use prohibit engaging in deceptive activities, including misrepresentation of affiliation, impersonation, and fraud. As part of these obligations, you must disclose your employer, client, and affiliation with respect to any contribution for which you receive, or expect to receive, compensation. You must make that disclosure in at least one of the following ways:

• a statement on your user page,
• a statement on the talk page accompanying any paid contributions, or
• a statement in the edit summary accompanying any paid contributions.

Applicable law, or our policies and guidelines, may further limit paid contributions or require more detailed disclosure.

We reserve the right to exercise our enforcement discretion with respect to the above terms.

5. Password Security

You are responsible for safeguarding your own password and should never disclose it to any third party.

6. Trademarks

Although you have considerable freedoms for re-use of the content on MEpedia, it is important that we protect our trademark rights so that we can protect our users from fraudulent impersonators. Because of this, we ask that you please respect our trademarks. All our trademarks belong to us, and any use of our trade names, trademarks, service marks, logos, or domain names must be in compliance with these Terms of Use.

7. Licensing of Content

To support the dissemination of free knowledge, all users contributing to MEpedia are required to grant broad permissions to the general public to re-distribute and re-use their contributions freely, so long as that use is properly attributed and the same freedom to re-use and re-distribute is granted to any derivative works. In keeping with our goal of providing free information to the widest possible audience, we require that when necessary all submitted content be licensed so that it is freely reusable by anyone who cares to access it.

You agree to the following licensing requirements:

1. Text to which you hold the copyright: When you submit text to which you hold the copyright, you agree to license it under:
   • Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License (“CC BY-SA”), and
   • GNU Free Documentation License (“GFDL”) (unversioned, with no invariant sections, front-cover texts, or back-cover texts).

   (Re-users may comply with either license or both.)

   Please note that these licenses do allow commercial uses of your contributions, as long as such uses are compliant with the terms.

2. Attribution: Attribution is an important part of these licenses. We consider it giving credit where credit is due – to authors like yourself. When you contribute text, you agree to be attributed in any of the following fashions:
   1. Through hyperlink (where possible) or URL to the article to which you contributed (since each article has a history page that lists all authors and editors);
   2. Through hyperlink (where possible) or URL to an alternative, stable online copy that is freely accessible, which conforms with the license, and which provides credit to the authors in a manner equivalent to the credit given on MEpedia; or
   3. Through a list of all authors (but please note that any list of authors may be filtered to exclude very small or irrelevant contributions).
3. Importing text: You may import text that you have found elsewhere or that you have co-authored with others, but in such case you warrant that the text is available under terms that are compatible with the CC BY-SA 3.0 license ("CC BY-SA"). Content available only under GFDL is not permissible.

   You agree that, if you import text under a CC BY-SA license that requires attribution, you must credit the author(s) in a reasonable fashion. Where such credit is commonly given through page histories, it is sufficient to give attribution in the edit summary, which is recorded in the page history, when importing the text. The attribution requirements are sometimes too intrusive for particular circumstances (regardless of the license), and there may be instances where we decide that imported text cannot be used for that reason.

4. Non-text media: Non-text media on MEpedia are available under a variety of different licenses that support the general goal of allowing unrestricted re-use and re-distribution. When you contribute non-text media, you agree to comply with the requirements for such licenses as described in our Copyright Policy.
5. No revocation of license: Except as consistent with your license, you agree that you will not unilaterally revoke or seek invalidation of any license that you have granted under these Terms of Use for text content or non-text media contributed to MEpedia, even if you terminate use of our services.
6. Public domain content: Content that is in the public domain is welcome! It is important however that you confirm the public domain status of the content under the law of the United States of America as well as the laws of any other countries. When you contribute content that is in the public domain, you warrant that the material is actually in the public domain, and you agree to label it appropriately.
7. Re-use: Re-use of content that we host is welcome, though exceptions exist for content contributed under "fair use" or similar exemptions under copyright law. Any re-use must comply with the underlying license(s).

   When you re-use or re-distribute a text page developed by the MEpedia community, you agree to attribute the authors in any of the following fashions:

   1. Through hyperlink (where possible) or URL to the page or pages that you are re-using (since each page has a history page that lists all authors and editors);
   2. Through hyperlink (where possible) or URL to an alternative, stable online copy that is freely accessible, which conforms with the license, and which provides credit to the authors in a manner equivalent to the credit given on MEpedia; or
   3. Through a list of all authors (but please note that any list of authors may be filtered to exclude very small or irrelevant contributions).

   If the text content was imported from another source, it is possible that the content is licensed under a compatible CC BY-SA license but not GFDL (as described in “Importing text,” above). In that case, you agree to comply with the compatible CC BY-SA license and do not have the option to re-license it under GFDL. To determine the license that applies to the content that you seek to re-use or re-distribute, you should review the page footer, page history, and discussion page.

   In addition, please be aware that text that originated from external sources and was imported into MEpedia may be under a license that attaches additional attribution requirements. Users agree to indicate these additional attribution requirements clearly. Such requirements may appear for example in a banner or other notations pointing out that some or all of the content was originally published elsewhere. Where there are such visible notations, re-users should preserve them.

   For any non-text media, you agree to comply with whatever license under which the work has been made available (which can be discovered by clicking on the work and looking at the licensing section on its description page or reviewing an applicable source page for that work). When re-using any content that we host, you agree to comply with the relevant attribution requirements as they pertain to the underlying license or licenses.
8. Modifications or additions to material that you re-use: When modifying or making additions to text that you have obtained from MEpedia, you agree to license the modified or added content under CC BY-SA 3.0 or later.

   When modifying or making additions to any non-text media that you have obtained from a MEpedia, you agree to license the modified or added content in accordance with whatever license under which the work has been made available.

   With both text content and non-text media, you agree to clearly indicate that the original work has been modified. If you are re-using text content in a wiki, it is sufficient to indicate in the page history that you made a change to the imported text. For each copy or modified version that you distribute, you agree to include a licensing notice stating which license the work is released under, along with either a hyperlink or URL to the text of the license or a copy of the license itself.

8. DMCA Compliance

We want to ensure that the content that we host can be re-used by other users without fear of liability and that it is not infringing the proprietary rights of others. In fairness to our users, as well as to other creators and copyright holders, our policy is to respond to notices of alleged infringement that comply with the formalities of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). Pursuant to the DMCA, we will terminate, in appropriate circumstances, users and account holders of our system and network who are repeat infringers.

However, we also recognize that not every takedown notice is valid or in good faith. In such cases, we strongly encourage users to file counter-notifications when they appropriately believe a DMCA takedown demand is invalid or improper. For more information on what to do if you think a DMCA notice has been improperly filed, you may wish to consult the Lumen Database website.

If you are the owner of content that is being improperly used on MEpedia without your permission, you may request that the content be removed under the DMCA. To make such a request, please email us at mepedia@meaction.net.

Alternatively, you may make a request to our community, which may handle copyright issues faster and more effectively than prescribed under the DMCA. In that case, you can post a notice explaining your copyright concerns to our Help Desk.

9. Third-party Websites and Resources

You are solely responsible for your use of any third-party websites or resources. Although MEpedia contains links to third-party websites and resources, we do not endorse and are not responsible or liable for their availability, accuracy, or the related content, products, or services (including, without limitation, any viruses or other disabling features), nor do we have any obligation to monitor such third-party content.

10. Management of Websites

1. MEAction has the primary role in creating policies and guidelines applying to MEpedia, after considering critical input from the MEpedia community. However, we rarely intervene to enforce policy as the MEpedia community often enforces policy on its own. In an unusual case, the need may arise, or the community may ask us, to address an especially problematic user because of significant disturbance or dangerous behavior. In such cases, we reserve the right, but do not have the obligation to:

• Investigate your use of the service (a) to determine whether a violation of these Terms of Use, MEpedia policy, or other applicable law or policy has occurred, or (b) to comply with any applicable law, legal process, or appropriate governmental request;
• Detect, prevent, or otherwise address fraud, security, or technical issues or respond to user support requests;
• Refuse, disable, or restrict access to the contribution of any user who violates these Terms of Use;
• Ban a user from editing or contributing or block a user's account or access for actions violating these Terms of Use, including repeat copyright infringement;
• Take legal action against users who violate these Terms of Use (including reports to law enforcement authorities); and
• Otherwise manage MEpedia in a manner designed to facilitate its proper functioning and protect the rights, property, and safety of ourselves and our users, licensors, partners, and the public.

In the interests of our users and MEpedia, in the extreme circumstance that any individual has had his or her account or access blocked under this provision, he or she is prohibited from creating or using another account on or seeking access to MEpedia, unless we provide explicit permission. Without limiting the authority of the community, we will not ban a user from editing or contributing or block a user's account or access solely because of good faith criticism that does not result in actions otherwise violating these Terms of Use or community policies.

The MEpedia community and its members may also take action when so allowed by our policies and guidelines, including but not limited to warning, investigating, blocking, or banning users who violate those policies. You agree to comply with the final decisions of MEpedia administrators or any dispute resolution bodies that may be established by the community (such as arbitration committees); these decisions may include sanctions as set out by our policies on moderation and banning.

The blocking of an account or access or the banning of a user under this provision shall be in accordance with Section 12 of these Terms of Use.

11. Updates to MEpedia Policies and Guidelines

We may amend existing policies or guidelines from time to time, or add new policies or guidelines. You agree to abide by all such policies or guidelines as applicable. We ask that you consider adding critical policies or guidelines to your watchlist to be alerted to new changes. When absolutely necessary, changes to policies may be applied retroactively, at our discretion.

12. Termination

Though we hope you will stay and continue to contribute to MEpedia, you can stop using our services any time. In certain (hopefully unlikely) circumstances it may be necessary for either ourselves or the MEpedia community or its members (as described in Section 10) to terminate part or all of our services, terminate these Terms of Use, block your account or access, or ban you as a user. If your account or access is blocked or otherwise terminated for any reason, your public contributions will remain publicly available (subject to applicable policies), and, unless we notify you otherwise, you may still access our public pages for the sole purpose of reading publicly available content. In such circumstances, however, you may not be able to access your account or settings. We reserve the right to suspend or end the services at any time, with or without cause, and with or without notice. Even after your use and participation are banned, blocked or otherwise suspended, these Terms of Use will remain in effect with respect to relevant provisions, including Sections 1, 3, 4, 6, 7, 9-15, and 17.

13. Disputes and Jurisdiction

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We hope that no serious disagreements arise involving you, but, in the event there is a dispute, we encourage you to seek resolution through good-faith dialogue with us. If you seek to file a legal claim against us, you agree to file and resolve it exclusively in a state or federal court located in San Francisco County, California. You also agree that the laws of the State of California and, to the extent applicable, the laws of the United States of America will govern these Terms of Use, as well as any legal claim that might arise between you and us (without reference to conflict of laws principles). You agree to submit to the personal jurisdiction of, and agree that venue is proper in, the courts located in San Francisco County, California, in any legal action or proceeding relating to us or these Terms of Use.

To ensure that disputes are dealt with soon after they arise, you agree that regardless of any statute or law to the contrary, any claim or cause of action you might have arising out of or related to use of our services or these Terms of Use must be filed within the applicable statute of limitations or, if earlier, one (1) year after the pertinent facts underlying such claim or cause of action could have been discovered with reasonable diligence (or be forever barred).

14. Disclaimers

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We do our best to provide informational content to a very wide audience, but your use of our services is at your sole risk. We provide these services on an "as is" and "as available" basis, and we expressly disclaim all express or implied warranties of all kinds, including but not limited to the implied warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, and non-infringement. We make no warranty that our services will meet your requirements, be safe, secure, uninterrupted, timely, accurate, or error-free, or that your information will be secure.

We are not responsible for the content, data, or actions of third parties, and you release us, our directors, officers, employees, and agents from any claims and damages, known and unknown, arising out of or in any way connected with any claim you have against any such third parties. No advice or information, whether oral or written, obtained by you from us or through or from our services creates any warranty not expressly stated in these Terms of Use.

Any material downloaded or otherwise obtained through your use of our services is done at your own discretion and risk, and you will be solely responsible for any damage to your computer system or loss of data that results from the download of any such material. You agree that we have no responsibility or liability for the deletion of, or the failure to store or to transmit, any content or communication maintained by the service. We retain the right to create limits on use and storage at our sole discretion at any time with or without notice.

You should also consult our General Disclaimer.

Some states or jurisdictions do not allow the types of disclaimers in this section, so they may not apply to you either in part or in full depending on the law.

15. Limitation on Liability

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We will not be liable to you or to any other party for any direct, indirect, incidental, special, consequential or exemplary damages, including but not limited to, damages for loss of profits, goodwill, use, data, or other intangible losses, regardless of whether we were advised of the possibility of such damage. In no event shall our liability exceed one thousand U.S. dollars (USD 1000.00) in aggregate. In the case that applicable law may not allow the limitation or exclusion of liability or incidental or consequential damages, the above limitation or exclusion may not apply to you, although our liability will be limited to the fullest extent permitted by applicable law.

16. Modifications to these Terms of Use

We reserve the right to modify these Terms of Use or any other policy or guideline in the future. For this reason, we ask that you please periodically review the most up-to-date version of these Terms of Use and any other applicable policies or guidelines. We ask that you consider adding this page to your watchlist to be alerted to new changes. Your continued use of our services after the new Terms of Use or policy becomes official constitutes an acceptance of these Terms of Use or policy on your part. For the protection of MEpedia and other users like yourself, if you do not agree with our Terms of Use or our policies, you cannot use our services.

17. Other Terms

These Terms of Use do not create an employment, agency, partnership, or joint venture relationship between you and us. If you have not signed a separate agreement with us, these Terms of Use and referenced policies are the entire agreement between you and us. If there is any conflict between these Terms of Use and a signed written agreement between you and us, the signed agreement will control.

You agree that we may provide you with notices by email or postings on MEpedia.

If in any circumstance, we do not apply or enforce any provision of these Terms of Use, it is not a waiver of that provision.

You understand that, unless otherwise agreed to in writing by us, you have no expectation of compensation for any activity, contribution, or idea that you provide to us, the community, or MEpedia.

Notwithstanding any provision to the contrary in these Terms of Use, we and you agree not to modify the applicable terms and requirements of any free license that is employed on MEpedia when such free license is authorized by these Terms of Use.

These Terms of Use were written in English (U.S.). While we hope that any translations of these Terms of Use are accurate, in the event of any differences in meaning between the original English version and a translation, the original English version takes precedence.

If any provision or part of a provision of these Terms of Use is found unlawful, void, or unenforceable, that provision or part of the provision is deemed severable from these Terms of Use and will be enforced to the maximum extent permissible, and all other provisions of these Terms of Use will remain in full force and effect.

Thank You!

We appreciate your taking the time to read these Terms of Use, and we are very happy to have you contributing to MEpedia and using our services. Through your contributions, you are helping to build a knowledge base for the science, history, and people of ME, CFS, and related conditions.