Wikishire:Terms of Use

Welcome to Wikishire!

Wikishire is a project to build a valuable resource for everyone containing information about the British and Irish lands - places, history, culture and more - and with useful links to community organisations and other sources of information and edification. All the information on our pages is in the public domain and on free licence to be used, and learnt from, and it may freely be disseminated, anywhere in the world, free of charge.

With cheerful contributions from across the land we are building a fine resource, so do join us as an editor: log on and start editing. For your guidance we must refer you to our Terms of use below, and to our Policies (which we hope you will find as mild and helpful guidance).

Wikishire Terms of Use

In any collaborative project, off-putting legal provisions are unavoidable so -

In editing you are agreeing to the following Terms of Use ("the Terms of Use"):

1. Although content may from time to time be monitored to ensure quality and avoid malice or departure from fixed policies, nevertheless, moment to moment control is in the hands of editors and you are responsible for the content which you may add: we just host this content.
2. The editors who contribute are the principal policemen of the site and are encouraged to remove or edit and improper content.
3. Because we are making content freely accessible to the public, we require that all content you contribute be available under a free licence or in the public domain, and on editing you are warranting that it is so.
4. Free licence does not extend to our logos, favicons, trade marks (registered or otherwise) nor the name "Wikishire".
5. You are legally responsible for all of your contributions, edits, and re-use of material Wikishire under the laws of the United Kingdom and other applicable laws, so employ caution when posting content.
6. Wikishire provides information. It does not give legal, medical, financial or other professional advice and takes no responsibility if any content on it from time to time appears to do so.
7. Wikishire takes no responsibility for any material contained on any third party site to which any link, direct or indirect, may lead.

The roles of Wikishire and of the editor

1. Wikishire is a hosting site providing the resource. Its material and the collection of outside links are put together by editors. Wikishire maintains the hosting and the programmes providing the infrastructure and some of the basic templates, all to enable the creation of the resource. On occasion we may add basic articles to seed the project and enable it to grow, but otherwise all the content is all from editors such as you. This allows you and other editors to build the Wikishire project as a resource for people, not for us, and a resource allowing people to take control and responsibility; something officialdom likes to take from the man in the street, you can begin to take back here.
2. Because Wikishire is therefore a collaborative effort, its content is provided by you and other editors, and we do not take an editorial role. We cannot and do not take responsibility for this content nor endorse the opinions expressed on Wikishire unless crystallised in Wikishire policies. We do not warrant nor guarantee the truthfulness, accuracy, or reliability of any content from any editor: our role is to provide the "shelf space" on which editors build.
3. You as an editor are responsible for your own actions and any defamation, breach of intellectual property rights or other tort committed by your edit is your action, not ours. Therefore, for your own protection you should exercise caution and avoid contributing any content that may result in criminal or civil liability under British or Irish law or any other law which may apply (bear in mind that the site is viewed in foreign countries).
4. Wikishire does not offer and will not provide any support or indemnity for any action taken against you as a result of your edit. If any action is taken against you for a civil wrong or a criminal offence committed by another's edit, you may refer to the edit history of the page in question to demonstrate whose edit is responsible for the action in question, but we cannot guarantee the availablility atr all times of that edit history.

Privacy

Our Privacy policy applies to the data received by our servers so that you are aware of how we collect and use your information. Our website is seen by people all over the world and may be contributed to by those across the world. Any personal information that the computers collect may be stored and processed in the United Kingdom or elsewhere if the site is hosted outside the United Kingdom from time to time. By editing or contributing or logging on, you consent to any such transfer of information outside your country.

Content on Wikishire

If you find on Wikishire material which is:

1. Incorrect or misleading, then edit it.
2. Objectionable or offensive, then either edit it or (to be brutally frank) don't be so easily offended, though Wikishire has policies to deal with some such questions of style and differences of opinion.
3. Of the appearance of professional advice, then it should not be taken as such and is not intended as advice: we take no responsibility for content and do not expect anyone to take content on Wikishire as professional advice

Improper actions

You should refer to Wikishire policies as to actions which are considered improper. A breach of policy through misunderstanding may mean you are chided or an edit reversed. Action which may may result in the content's being removed and the editor's being blocked or banned forthwith are:

1. Blatant and deliberate breaches of policy;
2. Anything which is unlawful, which constitutes a crime or civil wrong in the law of any part of the United Kingdom;
3. 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.
4. Impersonation, or fraud (including misrepresenting your affiliation with any individual or entity)
5. Posting pornography or any other obscene or indecent material
6. Engaging in Disruptive and Illegal Misuse of Facilities
7. 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;
8. Disruptive conduct such as:
   1. Automated uses disruptive of content or imposing irrelevant or misleading pages;
   2. Placing an undue burden on the Wikishire website or the networks or servers connected with it;
   3. Inundating the website or its servers with communications or other traffic of no serious intent to use the project for its stated purpose;
   4. Hacking into our non-public areas in our computer systems without authorization;
   5. Probing, scanning, or testing the vulnerability of any of our technical systems or networks.

Wikishire is not a democracy ultimately and action will be taken to preserve its integrity.

Password security

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

Licensing of content

You agree to the following licensing requirements:

1. When you submit text to which you hold the copyright, you agree to license it under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported Licence ("CC BY-SA"). Please note that this licence does allow commercial uses of your contributions, as long as such uses are compliant with the terms. The only exception to this CC-BY-SA licence is if Wikishire agrees to include any restricted content in "Locked articles", but any such material will be marked accordingly and in an article in which editing is restricted. At the time of writing there is no such content on Wikishire.
2. 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 licence. You agree that, if you import text under a CC BY-SA license that requires attribution, you must credit the author or authors in a reasonable manner.
3. Non-text media is only accepted by arrangement with an admin, and otherwise should be uploaded to Wikimedia's Commons website in accordance with its Policy.
4. No revocation of licence: you agree that you will not unilaterally revoke or seek invalidation of any licence that you have granted under these Terms of Use for text content or non-text media contributed to the Wikimedia Projects or features, even if you terminate use of our services.
5. Public domain content is welcome and by contributing it you confirm and warrant that it is in the public domain under British law.