Terms of Use

In effect since September 20, 2020. First version, see attribution notice.

Imagine a single platform for organizing the countless tips for useful resources scattered uncurated all over the web. A platform where everyone can contribute and engage. That's our mission.

Welcome to KnowledgePicker (“we”, “us”)! To support our community, we provide the essential infrastructure and organizational framework. We welcome you (“you” or the “user”) as a reader, editor, author, or contributor of KnwoledgePicker and we encourage you to join the KnowledgePicker community. Before you participate, however, we ask that you please read and agree to the following Terms of Use (“Terms of Use”).

These Terms of Use tell you about our relationship to you as a user, and the rights and responsibilities that guide us both. We want you to know that we host informational content, all of which is contributed and made possible by users like yourself. Generally we do not contribute, monitor, or delete content (with the exception of policies like these Terms of Use or legal compliance). This means that editorial control is in the hands of you and your fellow users who create and manage the content. We merely host this content.

Please be aware that you are legally responsible for all of your contributions and edits of KnowledgePicker content under all applicable laws (which may include the laws where you live or where you view or edit content). This means it is important that you use caution when posting content. In light of this responsibility, we have some rules about what you cannot post, most of which is either for your own protection or for the protection of other users like yourself.

We also include other important notices and disclaimers, so please read these Terms of Use in their entirety.

Contents

• Our Services
• Privacy Policy
• Content We Host
• Refraining from Certain Activities
• Password Security
• Trademarks
• Licensing of Content
• DMCA Compliance
• Third-party Websites and Resources
• Management of Website
• Termination
• Disputes
• Disclaimers
• Limitation on Liability
• Modifications to these Terms of Use
• Other Terms
• Thank You
• Attribution

Our Services

We act only as a hosting service, maintaining the infrastructure and organizational framework that allows our users to build KnowledgePicker by contributing and editing content themselves. Because of our unique role, there are a couple of things you should be aware of when considering our relationship to you and the other users:

We do not take an editorial role: All of the content that we host is provided by users like yourself, and we do not take an editorial role. This means that we generally do not monitor or edit the content, and we do not take any responsibility for this content. Similarly, we do not endorse any opinions expressed via our services, and we do not represent or guarantee the truthfulness, accuracy, or reliability of any submitted community content. Instead, we simply provide access to the content that your fellow users have contributed and edited.

You are responsible for your own actions: You are legally responsible for your edits and contributions on KnowledgePicker, 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. KnowledgePicker cannot offer any protection, guarantee, immunity or indemnification.

Privacy Policy

We ask that you review the terms of our Privacy Policy, so that you are aware of how we collect and use your information. Because our services are used by people all over the world, personal information that we collect may be stored and processed in the United States of America or any other country in which we or our agents maintain facilities. By using our services, you consent to any such transfer of information outside your country.

Content We Host

You may find some material objectionable or erroneous: Because we provide 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.

Our content is for general informational purposes only: Although we host or link to 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. Please seek independent professional counseling from someone who is licensed or qualified in the applicable area in lieu of acting on any information, opinion, or advice contained in KnowledgePicker.

Refraining from Certain Activities

The content hosted by us only exists because of the community of users like you who collaborate to write, edit, and curate the content. We happily welcome your participation in this community. We encourage you to be civil and polite in your interactions with others in the community, to act in good faith, and to make edits and contributions aimed at furthering our mission.

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 site. 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 any applicable laws;
• Soliciting personally identifiable information for purposes of harassment, exploitation, violation of privacy, or any promotional or commercial purpose; 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 the KnowledgePicker community;
• Disrupting the services by placing an undue burden on our website or the networks or servers connected with it;
• Disrupting the services by inundating the 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 our non-public areas in our computer systems without authorization; and
• Probing, scanning, or testing the vulnerability of any of our technical systems or networks unless all the following conditions are met:
• such actions do not unduly abuse or disrupt our technical systems or networks;
• such actions are not for personal gain (except for credit for your work);
• you report any vulnerabilities to our developers; and
• you do not undertake such actions with malicious or destructive intent.

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 client with respect to any contribution for which you receive, or expect to receive, compensation. You must make that disclosure as a statement on your user page.

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

Password Security

You are responsible for safeguarding your own password.

Trademarks

Although you have considerable freedoms for re-use of the content on the website, it is important that, at KnowledgePicker, we protect our trademark rights so that we can protect our users from fraudulent impersonators. Because of this, we ask that you please respect our trademarks. All KnowledgePicker trademarks belong to us, and any use of our trade names, trademarks, service marks, logos, or domain names must be in compliance with these Terms of Use.

Licensing of Content

All users contributing to KnowledgePicker are required to grant broad permissions to the general public to re-distribute and re-use their contributions freely, so long as that use is properly attributed and the same freedom to re-use and re-distribute is granted to any derivative works. In keeping with our goal of providing free information to the widest possible audience, we require that when necessary all submitted content be licensed so that it is freely reusable by anyone who cares to access it.

You agree to the following licensing requirements:

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).

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:

• 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);
• 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 our website; or
• Through a list of all authors (but please note that any list of authors may be filtered to exclude very small or irrelevant contributions).

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. You agree that, if you import text under a license that requires attribution, you must credit the author(s) in a reasonable fashion.

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 content contributed to us, even if you terminate use of our services.

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. When you contribute content that is in the public domain, you warrant that the material is actually in the public domain.

Re-use: Re-use of content that we host is welcome. Any re-use must comply with the underlying license(s). When you re-use or re-distribute content, you agree to attribute the authors through hyperlink 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). In addition, please be aware that text that originated from external sources and was imported may be under a license that attaches additional attribution requirements. Users agree to indicate these additional attribution requirements clearly.

Modifications or additions to material that you re-use: When modifying or making additions to text that you have obtained from our website, you agree to license the modified or added content under CC BY-SA 3.0 or later. You agree to clearly indicate that the original work has been modified.

DMCA Compliance

We want to ensure that the content that we host can be re-used by other users without fear of liability and that it is not infringing the proprietary rights of others. In fairness to our users, as well as to other creators and copyright holders, our policy is to respond to notices of alleged infringement that comply with the formalities of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). Pursuant to the DMCA, we will terminate, in appropriate circumstances, users and account holders of our system and network who are repeat infringers.

However, we also recognize that not every takedown notice is valid or in good faith. In such cases, we strongly encourage users to contact us at legal@knowledgepicker.com when they appropriately believe a DMCA takedown demand is invalid or improper.

If you are the owner of content that is being improperly used on our website without your permission, you may request that the content be removed under the DMCA. To make such a request, please email us at legal@knowledgepicker.com.

Third-party Websites and Resources

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

Management of Website

In an unusual case, the need may arise, or the community may ask us, to address an especially problematic user because of significant disturbance or dangerous behavior. In such cases, we reserve the right, but do not have the obligation to:

• Investigate your use of the service (a) to determine whether a violation of these Terms of Use or other applicable law or policy has occurred, or (b) to comply with any applicable law, legal process, or appropriate governmental request;
• Detect, prevent, or otherwise address fraud, security, or technical issues or respond to user support requests;
• Refuse, disable, or restrict access to the contribution of any user who violates these Terms of Use;
• Ban a user from editing or contributing or block a user's account or access for actions violating these Terms of Use, including repeat copyright infringement;
• Take legal action against users who violate these Terms of Use (including reports to law enforcement authorities); and
• Manage otherwise the website in a manner designed to facilitate its proper functioning and protect the rights, property, and safety of ourselves and our users, licensors, partners, and the public.

In the interests of us and our users, in the extreme circumstance that any individual has had his or her account or access blocked under this provision, he or she is prohibited from creating or using another account, unless we provide explicit permission.

Termination

Though we hope you will stay and continue to contribute to KnowledgePicker, you can stop using our services any time. In certain (hopefully unlikely) circumstances it may be necessary for us to terminate part 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 KnowledgePicker. 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.

Disputes

We hope that no serious disagreements arise involving you, but, in the event there is a dispute, we encourage you to seek resolution through contacting us at legal@knowledgepicker.com.

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).

Disclaimers

At KnowledgePicker, we do our best to provide informational content to a very wide audience, but 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 content will be secure.

We are not responsible for the content, data, or actions of third parties, and you release us 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.

Some states or jurisdictions do not allow the types of disclaimers in this section, so they may not apply to you either in part or in full depending on the law.

Limitation on Liability

KnowledgePicker 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 thousand U.S. dollars (USD 1000.00) 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.

Modifications to these Terms of Use

Just as the community's input is essential for the growth and maintenance of KnowledgePicker, we believe that community input is essential for these Terms of Use to properly serve our users. It is also essential for a fair contract. Any changes (for legal or administrative reasons, to correct an inaccurate statement, or changes in response to community comments) will be announced on our forum with sufficient notice.

Your continued use of our services after the new Terms of Use become official following the notice constitutes an acceptance of these Terms of Use on your part. For the protection of KnowledgePicker and other users like yourself, if you do not agree with our Terms of Use, you cannot use our services.

Other Terms

These Terms of Use do not create an employment, agency, partnership, or joint venture relationship between you and us. These Terms of Use are the entire agreement between you and us.

You agree that we may provide you with notices, including those regarding changes to the Terms of Use, by email or postings on KnowledgePicker forum.

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 you have no expectation of compensation for any activity, contribution, or idea that you provide to us or the community.

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.

Thank You

We appreciate your taking the time to read these Terms of Use, and we are very happy to have you contributing to KnowledgePicker and using our services. Through your contributions, you are helping to build a catalog of knowledge, an important collection of collaboratively picked and rated resources to help everyone learn from the best possible sources.

Attribution

These Terms of Use are a modified version of Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. Terms of Use available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License. As such these Terms are available under the same license.