Waidrn hosts user-submitted fiction and discussion. It is free to read and free to publish. This policy describes what may be published, what must be labelled, and what will be removed.

Allowed

• Original fiction, poetry, essays and serialised works of any genre.
• Transformative fanworks (fanfiction and fanart) for existing media, published free of charge.
• Discussion, criticism, worldbuilding, creative advice and community projects.
• Links to your own external support pages and portfolios.

Required labels

Every work must declare a rating (General, Teen, Mature, Explicit, or Not Rated), content warnings (or an explicit "Chose Not To Warn" / "No Warnings Apply" choice), a category, and a language. Works rated Mature or Explicit are visible only to signed-in adults who have confirmed adult access for the session; anonymous visitors never see them, and they are excluded from default listings until you opt in. Threads carry the same rating model. Age-assurance beyond a self-declaration at signup is not implemented yet; when it is, this policy will say exactly what is required.

Prohibited

• Content that is illegal in the jurisdiction of the hosting operator, including CSAM, sexual content involving minors, and content that incites violence or terrorism.
• Harassment, hate speech, doxxing, credible threats, and targeted abuse.
• Spam, malware, phishing, and attempts to compromise the site or its users.
• Texts you do not have the right to publish. Copyright complaints are handled through the Copyright & takedown process.
• Commercial solicitation, paywalled or gated access to hosted content, and any attempt to charge readers for hosted works.

Enforcement

Reported content enters the moderation queue (Moderation). Moderators can hide content pending review, remove it with a public tombstone and reason, lock threads, suspend accounts, and record every action in the audit log. Severe violations may be removed and the account suspended without notice. You can appeal a moderation decision to an admin through the report flow or moderation@waidrn.com (see Moderation); copyright matters follow the formal copyright notice and counter-notice process.

Adult content and minors

Waidrn is not directed at children. Users must be at least 18 years old, or the age of majority in their jurisdiction, to create an account. Adult content is gated and labelled; mislabelling adult content is itself a policy violation.

Accounts, entities and profiles

One person has one account (an entity). An account can present several profiles: the default profile created with it, additional public profiles (pen names), private or unlisted profiles, profiles limited to one realm (scoped), and profiles marked 18+ (adult-only). You switch the active profile in Settings; the profile you post with is the profile shown on the content, and your account email is never shown publicly.

Profile rules apply to every profile:

• No real-human imagery: avatars are artwork, identicons, generated or abstract. Real photos of real people, photorealistic human faces, and real-human intimate imagery are not allowed on profiles.
• Profile text and images pass the same automated policy checks as content at creation and on every edit (we call the check Jev); a check can queue or block a profile change, and blocks are reported to moderators.
• Scoped profiles are locked to one realm's contract; adult-only profiles may only post where the contract is 18+ (and never in tame/standard realms).
• Impersonation of Waidrn staff, other creators, verified organisations or real people is prohibited on every profile and page.

Realm contracts and availability

Discussion boards, realm pages and adult content live under realm contracts: versioned rules for a realm or a single thread. Contracts choose a tier (tame, standard, mature, uncensored-lawful) and a set of flags (adult-only, explicit-sex, image policy, link policy, profile policy, report threshold, age assurance, geo policy, and a real-person-fiction setting). A realm can only become adult-capable with operator approval, and a child realm or thread can only be stricter than its parent — never looser. The platform's unlawful-content floor (below) applies at every tier and cannot be waived by any contract.

When you post in a realm whose contract is stricter than your usual behaviour, the stricter rule wins. If a contract becomes stricter, we show a change notice and a grace window before existing lawful content is judged by the new restriction; unlawful content is removed immediately. Contract versions and acceptances are recorded; we never silently rewrite a version you already accepted.

Legal notices and transparency

Copyright holders and authorities can send legal notices through the paths described in the Copyright policy and DMCA page. Notices are tracked; decisions are recorded with reasons; aggregate counts (kind and outcome only, never identities) appear on Transparency. A receipt is not a decision and not legal advice.

Availability by location (provisional)

Some contracts may be unavailable in some countries where their content is unlawful or restricted. Availability is controlled by a versioned country matrix that is provisional and awaits legal review; hidden pages return an ordinary “not found” and do not disclose what is hidden or why. VPNs and proxies can defeat location checks, so this is a mitigation, not a guarantee.

Communities and organizations (v1.4)

Communities and organizations are social structures on Waidrn, not a licence to publish content that violates this policy. Community owners and moderators and organization owners/admins moderate their own spaces under these rules and the Moderation policy; Waidrn staff remain responsible for platform-wide enforcement, reports, and appeals.

• Impersonation is prohibited: names, pages or badges may not pretend to be Waidrn staff, another creator, another entity, or a verified organization. The product rejects names implying platform endorsement, and organization verification is reviewed by moderators; a verified badge is a statement that evidence was checked, not a guarantee.
• Communities and organizations may not be used to organize harassment, doxxing, fraud, or evasion of a suspension.
• Organization pages may link their own projects and boards; the projects remain subject to the same rules (including the rights matrix for project money).

Political content (v1.4)

Political speech and civic discussion are allowed on Waidrn, including debate about policy and public issues. Candidate or party campaign financing is prohibited: project funding, contributions and community/organization support may not be used to finance electoral campaigns, political parties, or candidates. Political projects, if any, must be clearly civic/informational and may not raise money for campaigns. Waidrn does not endorse candidates or parties.

Waidrn is a hosting platform for user-submitted works. Rights holders and their agents can ask us to take down material that infringes their rights. We respond to valid notices and provide a clear path for counter-notice.

Where notices go

Copyright contact: copyright@waidrn.com — a monitored inbox. Notices are delivered here and reviewed by the operator; where the process requires a formal designated agent, the operator adds that information separately and it is never invented on this page.

The full formal process — the required fields for a notice, what happens next, and the counter-notice path — is on the Copyright, notices & counter-notices page. Delivery status for every monitored address is on the Contact page.

What to include in a takedown notice

1. Identification of the copyrighted work you claim is infringed.
2. The exact URL(s) on Waidrn of the material you claim is infringing.
3. Your name, address, email, and (if you are an agent) your authority to act for the rightsholder.
4. A statement that you have a good-faith belief that the use is not authorised by the rightsholder, its agent, or the law.
5. A statement, under penalty of perjury, that the information in the notice is accurate and that you are the rightsholder or authorised to act on their behalf.
6. Your physical or electronic signature.

What happens next

We acknowledge notices within a reasonable period, hide or remove the identified material while we assess it, and notify the uploader where we have contact details. The action is recorded in the audit log with a public tombstone on the affected content. Repeated infringement by an account leads to suspension.

Cross-references

Content reports that are not copyright matters are handled through the Moderation process and the Content Policy.

Counter-notice

If you believe material you posted was removed in error, write to the same address with the URL, your contact details, and a statement that you have a good-faith belief the removal was a mistake, plus consent to jurisdiction. We may restore the material if the notifier does not pursue the matter.

Fanworks

Fanworks are transformative works published free of charge. Rightsholders who object to specific fanworks can use this process; we will honour valid requests. The platform takes no fee from creators or readers, and hosts nothing behind a paywall.

Rights status and project money (v1.4)

Works and projects on Waidrn carry a rights status chosen by their creator: original, owned, licensed, consented, fanwork without a licence, or rights not established. Project funding and ongoing contributions are only open for the first four. Fanwork without a licence and unknown-rights projects cannot receive project money; their pages offer creator support and this claim path instead.

Copyright-holder claim path. If a project uses your work without a licence, you (or an authorised agent) can file a claim from the project page with a statement and optional evidence link. Claims are reviewed by moderators; a pending claim is visible on the project page and project money stays closed. An accepted claim records the rights holder's consent and opens project money for that project; a rejected claim keeps it closed and the claimant is notified. Claims are audited. This is an additional workflow for project pages; it does not replace the DMCA/takedown notice process, which you can always use for hosted content.

Other legal notices (court orders, regulators, law enforcement)

Copyright is only one kind of legal demand. Court orders, law-enforcement requests, regulator/DSA orders, foreign blocking demands and platform-policy actions go through the legal-notice intake and the same operator queue. The receipt you get there is not a decision and not legal advice: it does not mean content has been or will be removed. Where a demand is valid and enforceable, we record the decision and reason and act as narrowly as the demand requires; we may seek counsel and may decline or narrow unlawful or overbroad requests. Evidence is preserved and a legal hold can block deletion while a notice or appeal is pending. Aggregate counts (kind and outcome only, never identities) are published on Transparency. Nothing on these pages is a promise of a response time or a legal outcome.

What changed in version 1.5

This version adds the live account/profile model, adult-gating wording, realm contracts, the unified legal-notice workflow, provisional location availability, jobs/chats/patronage cross-references and the privacy additions that go with them. It is not legal advice, and it does not claim a designated agent or a guaranteed response time. The trust/legal review flag stays on until the operator and counsel sign off; see Legal & trust for the operator checklist.

Honest delivery and decisions

• The copyright address and the Contact page state the actual delivery status. Email delivery may be delayed while mail DNS is completed; the in-app forms are the durable record.
• A notice receipt is not a decision. We may hide material while reviewing, restore it if the notice is not upheld, or keep it down with a recorded reason.
• We do not publish notice contents, requester identities or evidence. Aggregate counts by kind and outcome appear on Transparency.
• Legal holds can preserve evidence and block deletion while a notice, appeal or counter-notice is pending; holds are placed and released by the operator with an audit trail and a review date.
• Counter-notices are recorded and may be forwarded; restoration follows the applicable process and is never automatic.

Waidrn is a public town square. Moderation protects people from harm and keeps rules honest. Below: contracts, removals, reporting, outcomes, appeals. The Rules and Content Policy set the standard; the Terms are the legal side.

Realm contracts and tiers

Moderation follows the effective contract of the place content lives in: the realm chain's contracts combined with the thread's own contract, and the platform's unlawful-content floor on top. Tiers run tame → standard → mature → uncensored-lawful; flags cover adult-only, explicit-sex, image/link rules, profile rules, report thresholds, age assurance and location availability. A child realm or thread may only be stricter than its parent; adult capability needs operator approval. Posting in a realm records your acceptance of its current contract version, and material contract changes are announced before they are enforced on existing lawful content. See the Content Policy for the flag list.

What we remove and why

We remove illegal content — sexual content involving minors, credible threats, doxxing, malware — plus harassment or hate, spam, stolen or copyright-infringing work (Copyright & takedown), and unlabelled adult content or content shown outside its contract's visibility rules. We do not remove work for being unpopular or critical of us.

Adult content works like this today: Mature/Explicit works and threads are never shown to anonymous visitors; signed-in accounts need the adult preference and an explicit per-session confirmation. Adult-only profiles can post only where the contract is adult-capable. Signup asks you to declare you are an adult; stronger age assurance is not implemented yet and will be described here before it is required.

How reporting works

Every post, thread, work, chapter, comment, project and profile has a Report link. Pick one of eight reasons — Harassment or abuse, Hate speech, Spam, Copyright, Illegal content, Doxxing or privacy, Adult content violation, Other — and add details if they help. Reports are private: the reported person is not told who reported them. Accounts can send five reports an hour; the limit protects the queue from abuse, not criticism.

What happens next

Reports go into a moderator queue. A moderator can hide content (it stops being public, keeps a tombstone and can be restored), dismiss the report with no action, or suspend an account for serious or repeated violations — signing it out, revoking its sessions and blocking sign-in, posting, trading and minting (the person can still read as a visitor).

If a post, thread or comment collects three or more open reports, it is hidden automatically pending human review. Works, projects and accounts are never auto-hidden — they are queued for a moderator.

Soft-delete and tombstones

Removed content leaves a tombstone: title, author and date stay visible, so links and receipts do not develop silent holes. Authors can see that their content was removed.

Transparency

Every moderation action — hide, dismissal, resolution, suspension, lock or tag correction — is written to the audit log, visible to moderators and admins. There are no invisible penalties.

Who does what

Moderators handle content: they hide content, resolve reports, lock or pin threads, and correct tags. They cannot touch money, roles or platform settings; those are admin-only, along with the simulation clock and the email queue.

Tag corrections

Fandom and freeform tags can be renamed, aliased or merged so fandom pages stay clean. When a tag's URL changes, the old link redirects permanently, so bookmarks do not break.

Appeals and contact

Decision-aware moderation records an immutable decision with a public identifier, the contract version and the reason class. If you believe a decision was wrong, appeal from the decision's page or mail moderation@waidrn.com with the link/decision id and what was missed; an admin or moderator who did not make the original decision reviews it. Contract decisions can be appealed to an admin; suspension appeals have their own path. Security issues go to security@waidrn.com — see /.well-known/security.txt.

Legal notices are a separate track

Copyright and other legal notices (court orders, law-enforcement requests, regulator/DSA orders, foreign demands) follow the notice workflows described in the Copyright policy and DMCA page. They are not user reports: they are tracked, decided with reasons, audited, and can place a legal hold that preserves evidence. Some notices cannot be discussed publicly; aggregate counts appear on Transparency.

Safety tools and expectations

Block people you do not want to hear from, mute tags or fandoms you do not want to see, and set the adult gate and rating/warning labels as you prefer. We aim to review reports within 48 hours; illegal content is escalated immediately. Waidrn is a small team. Location-based availability (geo policy) is applied provisionally while it awaits legal review; hidden content returns an ordinary not-found page, and the fact of a hide is audited.

Communities, organizations and verification (v1.4)

• Community moderation: owners and moderators manage membership/roles, join requests and their linked boards/projects. Waidrn staff handle reports and platform-wide issues; moderators can be reported on-page.
• Organization roles: owners and admins manage members, links and settings. Organization pages carry a verification state (unverified, pending, verified, rejected); only moderators set verified, after reviewing evidence, and every decision is audited and notified. Verification is not an endorsement or guarantee of conduct.
• Impersonation: names and pages that imply Waidrn endorsement or impersonate people/entities are removed. The product refuses reserved names and case-insensitive collisions; reports can always be used.
• Simulated support (creator/community/organization and project contributions) is subject to anti-spam limits (per-action amount caps and hourly limits), self-support/self-contribution blocks, and audited receipts. Suspicious support patterns can be reversed by staff through ledger adjustments and are reportable.

What we collect

• Account data: username, email, password hash (Argon2id — we never store the password itself), avatar/identicon seed, bio, links you choose to add, theme and preference settings.
• Content: works, chapters, comments, board posts, chat and room messages, project proposals, proposals/jobs listings, pledges, gifts, votes and reports that you create.
• Profile data: every profile on your account (handle, display name, bio, links, avatar seed), profile kind (default/public/private/adult-only/scoped), the realm scope of scoped profiles, and switch/attribution records so content shows the profile it was posted with.**
• Policy-check data: records of automated policy checks on profile/content changes (we call the check Jev) — outcome category, timestamps and the object checked — so blocks can be reviewed and appealed.
• Adult-access records: your account adult preference and per-session adult confirmations (session id, timestamps, decision), so the adult gate can be enforced. Anonymous visitors never receive adult content.
• Contract records: moderation-contract versions for realms/threads and your contract acceptances (version, timestamp, and a salted, truncated hash of the IP — never a raw IP).
• Legal-notice records: legal notices we receive (kind, requester contact details, subject references, decisions, reasons, evidence references and legal-hold state). These are staff-only and never published; only aggregate counts reach the transparency page.
• Availability records: when content is hidden by a provisional geo rule, we record the country code, policy version, path and timestamp for legal evidence; we do not store a geolocation profile or the IP in this audit entry.
• Financial-simulation records: your simulated WAID balances, simulated USD balances, ledger entries, post power, and project escrow. All of it is demo money.
• Technical data: session records (hashed session token, IP address, user agent, timestamps), rate-limit counters, and server logs that may contain request metadata.

What we do not collect

No advertising identifiers, no third-party analytics, no external fonts or CDNs, no payment data, no government ID, and no stored geolocation. It is a v1 limitation and a deliberate choice. Our automated policy checks examine the content/profile text and images you submit; they are not a general surveillance tool and do not build shadow profiles.

Why we keep it

To run the product (sessions, content, balances, notification delivery), to keep the site secure (rate limits, audit logs, moderation), and to satisfy legal obligations.

Public by design

Your username, display name, bio, published works, board posts, projects, pledges (amounts may be shown publicly), kudos and public bookmarks are public. Votes are shown only as aggregates in receipts, never per-person. Private bookmarks are private. Your email is never shown publicly. Preferences (likes/dislikes/mutes) are private.

Sharing

We do not sell data. We share data only with infrastructure providers necessary to serve the site (hosting, database, and the operator's own mail service), or when legally required. Secrets and environment configuration are kept on the server, not in the repository.

A data-protection impact assessment (DPIA) for profiles, automated policy checks, asset uploads and adult gating is pending; it will be referenced here once completed. The trust/legal review flag remains on until the operator and counsel sign off on this policy set — the current status is shown on /admin/trust for staff and summarised honestly on this page: this policy set has not yet completed independent legal review.

Your choices

You can edit your profile, change your email and password, export your account data as JSON from Settings → Account, and delete your account (soft delete; content is attributed to [deleted user]). For data requests, write to support@waidrn.com — see the Contact page. Cookies used: waidrn_session (session, HttpOnly), waidrn_csrf (CSRF protection), waidrn_theme (display preference).

Retention

Ledger transactions, audit logs, receipts, moderation decisions and contract-acceptance records are retained as the system's permanent accountability record. Session records are retained until expiry or revocation. Adult-access session confirmations expire with the session. Legal-notice records and evidence are retained while a hold is active and, after resolution, according to the retention window described in the Legal & trust runbook — evidence references are cleared after the retention period unless a hold applies. Geo availability audit entries are retained for accountability; they contain no IP. Signup/profile policy-check records are retained with the content/moderation record. Logs are rotated.

Support, contributions and communities (v1.4)

• Simulated WAID only. Waidrn does not collect or process card, bank, payment-processor or KYC data; there is no real-money rail. Support/contribution amounts exist only in the simulated ledger.
• We store support receipts and contribution records (amount, sender account, recipient creator/community/org/project, message, transaction id) to run the simulated economy, show aggregate totals to creators, and keep the ledger reconcilable. Public project pages show public-tier contributors by name; amount-only and anonymous contributions are counted but not named. Support receipts for creators show the sender's username and amount to the creator's supporters list as public by default; do not include personal information you do not want shown in the optional message.
• We store membership and role records for communities and organizations, linked boards/projects, and organization verification requests/evidence links you submit. Verification evidence is visible to moderators; never upload sensitive personal documents to a demo verification field.
• External support links are URLs you choose; we do not process their payments and do not receive your data from them.
• Rights-status attestations and claim statements are stored and audited as part of project records; claims may reference an evidence URL you provide.

By creating an account or using Waidrn you agree to these Terms, the Content Policy and the Rules.

1. Who we are

Waidrn ("the service") is a simulated-economy patronage and fiction community operated by its founder. Contact: support@waidrn.com for account help and copyright@waidrn.com for legal notices; the full list of monitored channels and their current delivery status is on the Contact page. These Terms describe how the service operates; they are not legal advice.

2. Accounts

You must be at least 18 (or the age of majority where you live) to create an account. You are responsible for your password and for activity on your account. One person, one account: profiles are presentations within your account, not separate accounts, and you stay responsible for what every profile posts. We may suspend or remove accounts that break these Terms.

Profiles

Your account may have several profiles (default, public pen names, private/unlisted, one-realm scoped, 18+ adult-only). You switch the active profile in Settings. Profile names, bios and avatars must follow the profile rules in the Content Policy: no real-human imagery or photorealistic faces, no impersonation, and automated policy checks at creation and on every edit. Adult-only profiles may post only in adult-capable realms; scoped profiles only in their realm.

Adult content

Adult content is available only to signed-in adults who set the adult preference and explicitly confirm per session; anonymous visitors never see it. Signup requires an adult declaration; stronger age assurance is not implemented yet and will be described in this policy before it is required. Do not mislabel adult content.

3. Your content

You keep copyright in everything you publish. By publishing, you grant Waidrn a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free licence to host, store, reproduce, display and serve your content, including technical copies such as caches and downloads for readers. This licence ends when you delete your content, except for copies already made by readers and records that must be kept (public receipts, moderation and audit logs).

You promise that you have the right to publish what you publish, or that your use is lawful (for example a transformative fanwork published free of charge), and you accept the Content Policy.

4. Free access commitment

Content published on Waidrn stays free to read here. You may not add a paywall, early-access tier or gated access to work published on Waidrn. You may link to external support pages.

5. The simulated economy

WAID coins, post power and simulated US dollars are demo money with no real-world value. They are not a security, investment, deposit, or claim on real assets. There is no blockchain, no KYC, no withdrawal to real money, and no platform fee. We may adjust simulation parameters (rent, decay, mint rewards) to keep the demonstration working. Public receipts record delivered milestones.

6. Funded projects

Community projects are contracts between creators and patrons. The platform facilitates the escrow but is not a party to the contract and does not adjudicate disputes in v1. Deliverables must be published publicly at each milestone; on completion, software must be released under a permissive licence and creative works under a free licence equivalent to CC-BY. Terms, milestones and payout percentages become immutable at claim acceptance.

7. Realm contracts and availability

Boards, realm pages and threads carry versioned moderation contracts (tiers tame/standard/mature/uncensored-lawful plus flags for adult content, imagery, links, profiles, reporting, age assurance and location availability). By posting in a realm or thread you accept its current contract version. A contract can be tightened; a child realm or thread cannot be looser than its parent, and the platform's unlawful-content floor applies everywhere. Material changes are announced before they are enforced on existing lawful content, and we do not silently rewrite a version you accepted. Some content may be unavailable in some countries where it is unlawful or restricted; that availability control is provisional, returns an ordinary not-found page, and is a mitigation rather than a guarantee.

8. Moderation and termination

We may remove content and suspend accounts for policy violations, with an audit trail. The report flow, decision process and appeal route are described in Moderation; aggregate enforcement numbers are published on Transparency. You may delete your account at any time; your content becomes attributed to [deleted user] and hosted content may remain unless you request removal.

9. Liability

The service is provided "as is". To the maximum extent permitted by law, we disclaim warranties and are not liable for indirect or consequential losses arising from use of the service, including the simulated economy.

10. Changes

We may update these Terms; material changes will be announced on the site. Continued use after a change means you accept the updated Terms.

Jobs, chats and rooms (v1.9)

Waidrn also offers community project boards, chats and rooms (jobs bridge) and simulated patronage/creator support. These are user-facing features, not separate accounts or real-money services: chats and rooms have their own posting rules and moderation, jobs listings are user-submitted and moderated like other content, and patronage remains simulated money only. Each surface links to its policy/help page.

Patronage, contributions and rights (v1.5)

• Simulated money only. WAID, simulated USD and all support/contribution flows are demo money. There is no real payment rail, no KYC, no payout, no investment product. Nothing on Waidrn has real monetary value.
• Creator support is voluntary simulated WAID + your own external links. The platform fee is 0. External pages are outside Waidrn's control; their terms apply.
• Project money is rights-gated. By creating a project you attest its rights status and may update it later. Funding/contributions are closed server-side for projects whose rights are not established or that are unlicensed fanwork. You are responsible for the accuracy of the rights status you attest and for the projects you publish.
• Pledges follow the escrow/milestone/refund rules shown on the project. Contributions are non-refundable project money and are labelled as such.
• Communities/organizations are user-created and user-moderated within the Content Policy; organization verification is reviewed by moderators and is not an endorsement or guarantee.
• No campaign financing. Project money, contributions, community/org support and creator support may not be used to finance electoral campaigns, political parties, or candidates.
• Claims and takedowns. Rights holders can use /legal/dmca and the copyright-holder claim path described in the Copyright policy.