Terms of Service & User Agreement

The short version

The Quillective is a free, community-run writing space that is currently in alpha. It is unfinished, it will change, and it will sometimes break.

Your writing is yours. Most of it stays in your own browser, so keep your own backups. Be decent to other members. We can pause or remove accounts that put the community or the service at risk. The service comes without guarantees.

1. Who can join

The Quillective is invite-only during alpha. You must be at least 18 years old to create an account, and you must be able to enter into this agreement where you live.

Give a real email address that you control, keep your password private, and tell us if you think your account has been accessed by someone else. You are responsible for what happens under your account. One person, one account.

2. This is an alpha

Alpha means early. Features may change, move or disappear. The service may be unavailable, slow or buggy, and we may reset or remove data as part of testing.

Do not treat The Quillective as the only copy of anything you cannot afford to lose. Use the export and backup tools in Settings regularly, and keep your own copies of your work elsewhere.

Your feedback is what alpha is for. If you send us bug reports, ideas or other feedback, we may use them freely to improve the service without owing you anything for them.

3. Your writing and your content

You own what you write and create. We do not claim ownership of your manuscripts, characters, worlds, plots, notes or anything else you make.

Your projects live in your browser on your device. If you choose to connect a backup folder or a cloud storage account, copies go there, under your control. We do not read your project files to run the service.

Some things you choose to share, such as forum posts, your public profile, messages, pen pal requests, beta-reading requests, and author service listings and reviews, are stored on our servers. You give us permission to store, display and deliver that shared content to the people you are sharing it with, and only as needed to run The Quillective. That permission lasts as long as the content is on the service.

Sharing a manuscript for Beta Reading is different: it passes through our servers only as a temporary encrypted copy your browser creates before sending it, readable only by the beta reader you approved. We cannot read it, and it is deleted once that read is finished or you withdraw it. See the Privacy Policy for how this works.

Only share work you have the right to share. Do not post other people's writing or personal information without their permission.

4. Being part of the community

Be respectful. You agree not to use The Quillective to:

• harass, threaten, stalk, bully or demean other people, or share hateful content aimed at people for who they are;

• post or share anything illegal, or any sexual content involving minors (which is banned outright and will be reported);

• impersonate someone else, or pretend to represent The Quillective or its team;

• send spam, scams, unsolicited promotion or repeated unwanted messages, or use pen pal, messaging or services features for anything other than their purpose;

• copy, scrape or bulk-collect other members' content or information;

• plagiarise or pass off other people's work as your own;

• try to break, overload, probe or gain unauthorized access to the service or to other people's accounts. If you find a security problem, please report it through Send Feedback instead of exploiting it.

Author services, beta reading and pen pal connections are between members. We do not vet members or their offers, we are not a party to any arrangement you make, and any payment or exchange is at your own risk. Use your own judgment and be careful about what you share.

5. Your information and privacy

What we store about you on our servers: your account details (username, display name, email, avatar, roles and preferences, and a securely hashed password, never the password itself); the sign-in sessions on your devices; invites you created or used; feedback you send; and the social activity described above.

What we collect automatically: technical error reports (which can include your account, the page you were on and your browser details) so we can fix problems, and basic counts of which features are used, with no content of your writing attached.

Messages and safety: some safety-related information, such as the reason given when declining a message request, is visible to our staff so we can keep the community safe. Staff may also review reported content, and content we need to check in order to investigate abuse or keep the service running.

Who else handles data: we use third-party services to run The Quillective, such as hosting, a database, and email delivery. If you connect a cloud storage account, your files are sent to that provider under its own terms. We do not sell your personal information.

Your choices: you can download your data, archive your account, or delete your account from Settings. Deleting your account is permanent. It removes your account, profile, follows and sign-in sessions, and scrubs your ID and email from our error, feedback and usage records. Forum posts, messages and reviews you wrote may remain, but they are no longer linked to you. It does not remove copies that are only on your own devices or in your own cloud storage.

We keep this description accurate as best we can, but during alpha the details may shift. Material changes will be reflected in an updated version of this agreement.

6. Our right to act

We may remove content, limit features, suspend, archive or end an account, or refuse an invite, if we believe someone has broken this agreement, put other people at risk, or put the service at risk. Where we reasonably can, we will say why.

You can stop using The Quillective at any time and can delete your account from Settings.

7. No guarantees and limits on responsibility

The Quillective is provided "as is" and "as available", without warranties of any kind. We do not promise that it will be secure, uninterrupted, error-free, or that your data will never be lost or corrupted.

To the fullest extent the law allows, the people who run The Quillective are not liable for indirect, incidental or consequential losses, or for lost data, lost work, or lost opportunities, arising from your use of the service. Nothing here limits any right you have that cannot be limited by law.

This is a free service run by volunteers. Please keep that in mind and be kind to us as we build it.

8. Changes to this agreement

We will update this agreement as The Quillective grows. When it changes in a way that matters, the version number changes and we will ask you to review and accept the new version. You can read the current version at any time in Settings.

If you do not agree to a new version, you can stop using the service and delete your account.

9. Questions and reports

For questions, feedback, safety reports, or to report content or a member that breaks these terms, use Send Feedback inside The Quillective.