Infogalactic:Terms of Service

1. Our Services

Infogalactic acts only as a hosting service, maintaining the infrastructure and organizational framework that allows users to build the Planetary Knowledge Core by contributing and editing content themselves. This means:

1. We are not responsible for your content or your actions.
2. You are responsible for your own actions: You are legally responsible for your edits and contributions on Infogalactic, 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. Infogalactic does not offer any protection, guarantee, immunity or indemnification.

2. Privacy Policy

Personal information that we collect may be stored and processed in any 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 pertains to professional topics, including medical, legal, or financial issues, this content is presented for general informational purposes only. It should not be taken as professional advice.

4. Refraining from Certain Activities

We encourage you to be civil and polite in your interactions with others in the community, to act in good faith, and to maintain an objective perspective when contributing and editing content.

Certain activities, whether legal or illegal, may be harmful to other users and violate our rules, 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 Switzerland 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 Infogalactic; 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 Infogalactic;
• Disrupting the services by placing an undue burden on an Infogalactic website or the networks or servers connected with an Infogalactic website;
• Disrupting the services by inundating any Infogalactic website with communications or other traffic that suggests no serious intent to use the website for its stated purpose;
• Knowingly accessing, tampering with, or using any of Infogalatic’s non-public areas in our computer systems without authorization; and
• Probing, scanning, or testing the vulnerability of any of our technical systems or networks.

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.

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

5. Usernames and Password Security

Infogalactic supports Internet anonymity and encourages the use of usernames that are not personally identifiable. You are responsible for safeguarding your own password and should never disclose it to any third party. In the interest of account security, we recommend using a 12-digit random password.

6. Trademarks

All Infogalactic trademarks belong to Infogalactic AG, and any use of our trade names, trademarks, service marks, logos, or domain names must be in compliance with these Terms of Use and in compliance with our Trademark Policy.

7. Licensing of Content

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 the Project website; 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 (or, as explained above, another license when exceptionally required by the Project edition or feature)("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.

4. Non-text media: Non-text media on the Projects are available under a variety of different licenses that support the general goal of allowing unrestricted re-use and re-distribution.
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 Infogalactic or features, 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 Switzerland as well as the laws of any other countries as required by the specific Project edition. 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 or distributed by Infogalactic, 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 the Project website; 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 a Project may be under a license that attaches additional attribution requirements. Users agree to indicate these additional attribution requirements clearly. Depending on the Project, 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 a Project website, 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 Project website, 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. Third-party Websites and Resources

You are solely responsible for your use of any third-party websites or resources. Although Infogalactic 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.

9. User Management

Infogalactic has the right to block or ban any user for any reason whatsoever. In using Infogalactic, you agree that we have the right to suspend, block, or delete your account at any time, without notice or due process.

10. Policies

When Infogalactic releases new policies, you agree to abide by them as applicable.

11. Termination

You can stop using our services any time. In certain circumstances it may be necessary for either ourselves or the Infogalactic community or its members, 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 on Infogalactic. 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.

12. Disputes and Jurisdiction

In the event there is a dispute, we encourage you to seek resolution through the dispute resolution procedures or mechanisms provided by the website and Infogalactic AG. If you seek to file a legal claim against us, you agree to file and resolve it exclusively in a court located in Switzerland. You also agree that the laws of Switzerland 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 Switzerland, 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).

13. Disclaimers

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.

14. Limitation on Liability

Infogalactic AG 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 hundred Swiss Francs (CHF 100.00) 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.

15. Other Terms

These Terms of Use do not create an employment, agency, partnership, or joint venture relationship between you and us, Infogalactic AG. If you have not signed a separate agreement with us, these Terms of Use 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, including those regarding changes to the Terms of Use, by email, regular mail, or postings on Infogalactic sites.

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 the websites.

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

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.