Terms of use

These are some policies that we use for the WritingTravellers Project. If you have any question about the specifics of these policies, or if you want to see them changed/amended/clarified, use the Forum. A list of issues currently being discussed can be found there.

General Policy
All texts and images published in the WritingTravellers Project are 100% free. No copyrighted work can be included without the explicit permission of the copyright holder to license it under the Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike License 3.0. The WritingTravellers foundation will do its utmost to prevent the unauthorized use of copyright protected material in the project. In the unlucky event of a violation it will immediately remove that content and it will hold the user who put the copyright protected material in the WritingTravellers Project fully responsible for this violation.

Content should target our goals. Everything put into the WritingTravellers Project should help to meet the goal of making a free, complete, up-to-date, and reliable travel guide. Content that doesn't help to do so doesn't have a place in the project. See the Guidelines for more details.

Collaboration will be our strength
The WritingTravellers Project web server, with accompanying Wiki software, is a collaboration tool used to coordinate the effort of contributing to the project. It is made available to the entire community of contributors, namely:

1. People who support the goals of creating a free, complete, up-to-date and reliable world-wide travel guide.
2. People who acknowledge that collaboration with other writing travellers is necessary to achieve this goal.

If you're not interested in these goals, or if you agree with these goals but refuse to collaborate, compromise, reach consensus or make concessions with other writing travellers, we ask that you not use this web service. If you continue to use the service against our wishes, we reserve the right to use whatever means available — technical or legal — to prevent you from disrupting our work together.

Privacy
Many writing travellers — but by no means all! — are experienced Internet users who value their privacy. The following policy tries to balance the needs of writing travellers with the needs of the WritingTravellers community at large.

1. User information will not be sold for any reason. Your user information will not be sold to marketing companies or other groups who want to bother you.
2. You may be sent email by other writing travellers. Each user page contains a form to email the user. Your email address will not be exposed to other users, but they will be able to send you email through the web form. You can disable email from other users on your preferences page.
3. You may be sent email by moderators even if you disabled email from other users. In extreme circumstances, moderators may contact you directly through email. This would be only for extraordinary situations.
4. You may be sent email by the WritingTravellers foundation once in a while to update you on news about the WritingTravellers project. This will never be more frequent than once a month.
5. User information will be transferred on demand to law enforcement officials or under court order. In general, your identity will not be protected in case of legal investigation.
6. IP addresses are logged. The wiki software used by the WritingTravellers Project logs the IP address of anonymous users. This is mostly to give those users some identity, but in case of legal hassle, IP address log information will be turned over to courts or law enforcement officials.
7. Your username will be used for attribution. In the right hand column of each page is an attribution block showing who worked on the page. This is a feature; we're giving you credit for the work that you do. You don't have to provide a real name to if you don't want; just don't fill out the "real name" field when signing up, or in the preferences list.
8. User pages are published, copyleft works. Your user page is released under the same copyleft license as any other part of the WritingTravellers Project. Don't put personal information there that you would feel uncomfortable having appear on other web sites, in books, projected onto the sides of buildings, or whatever.
9. Comments and Forum postings are published, copyleft works. Similarly, your comments on talk pages are also copyleft, and subject to the same rules for distribution as any other page.

Moderators
Moderators are writing travellers that have a responsibility to keep the WritingTravellers Project running, and thus some additional privileges over and above normal. Moderators have shown a good appreciation of the projects policies and guidelines and made significant contributions on the WritingTravellers Project.

The main features available only to moderators are:

• Deleting an item . Only moderators can permanently delete an item or file.
• Deleting an image.
• Protecting/unprotecting a page. An moderator can mark certain pages as protected; these pages can only be edited by other moderators.

The decision to give these privileges to certain users is pragmatic. Most vandalism and other changes that don't conform to policy can be reverted or changed by more committed writing travellers. Protection and deletion cannot; therefore, these privileges are only granted to certain users.

Note that plenty of long-time writing travellers may not want the responsibility of being an moderator. Moderators are the plumbers and janitors of the project, and have to do a lot of pointless busywork.

It's also important to remember that any user can edit, change, or otherwise muck with almost any item on the WritingTravellers Project. It's not really necessary to wait for an moderator to do some "administrative" work; in fact, it's best to just plunge forward and do the job yourself.

Becoming an moderator
If you think a writing traveller — including yourself! — should become a moderator, post their name on the moderator nominations page with a brief description of why he/she should have moderator privileges. To post a candidate you must be a registered user. You can use the "reply" option for posting a new candidate or reply on the nomination. After the deadline for discussion, another moderator will grant them moderator status given all requirements are fulfilled.

Ending moderator privileges
Unused high-privilege user accounts are a security risk. For this reason, moderators who don't use their accounts for 3 months will be notified by email and their privileges will be revoked. Moderators who know they don't have the time or interest to continue as moderator should request to have their privileges revoked voluntarily.

Moderators who abuse their privileges can have those privileges revoked.

After losing moderator privileges for any reason, a writing traveller must go through the nomination process again to regain those privileges.

Disclaimer
The WritingTravellers community and foundation are working hard to make information on this web site as accurate as possible: however you should consider that, due to its open nature, the WritingTravellers Project can contain some imprecisions or errors.

The WritingTravellers foundation does not accept any responsibility for any inconvenience originated from information published on this website.

We invite you to verify critical information (like visas, health, safety and transportation) with the official authorities before starting your trip.