Hello everyone! It's time for the first update to the ToS of the forum. Specifically, I have taken many weeks to think about, and improve how they read, and clarify some things. The most notable change is the addition of a section on using OAuth, which I have added on request by a user.
Please read the updated terms (see below). If you do not agree to the updated terms, you are required to terminate your account before they go into effect. The changed terms will go into effect on February 28, 2025, giving you roughly two weeks to decide.
Here is a TL;DR of the changes:
Renamed "Base Terms" to "General Terms"
Added section "Using OAuth"
Added in section "Your Account on this Forum":
- By signing up for an account on this forum, you agree to be bound by these terms. If you do not agree to these terms, you may not sign up for an account on this forum. Should we change these terms, and you do not agree to the changes, you are required to terminate your account before the changes go into effect.
- Add regulations for offensive/impersonating usernames
Number sections
Divide the GDPR section into a "Privacy Policy" and GDPR separately.
Various grammar and language improvements.
ToS Follow
By using this forum, you agree to the following terms. These terms form a binding agreement between you, the user of the website at <https://forum.zettlr.com>, and Zettlr, represented by the Zettlr Steering Committee and the moderators of this forum.

These terms are intended to facilitate productive and welcoming communication among the community. Violating any of these terms can result in your account removal and the prohibition of any further engagement with this site. For any inquiries regarding these terms, please email us at <info@zettlr.com>.

**Last updated on February 28, 2025**.

## 1. General Terms

This forum is public and as such it is possible to browse the forum in read-only mode. Regardless of whether you have signed up for an account or not, you are subject to the following conditions:

* You may not use this forum destructively, that is, do anything technical or non-technical that undermines the stability or functionality of the software or the forum itself. You may not willfully interfere with the orderly function of this forum.
* You agree to use the forum as intended, and do not exploit potential bugs or other unintended behavior. Instead, if you find a bug or malfunction, notify us via email to <info@zettlr.com>.
* To visit the forum, the software needs to set technically required cookies on your browser. If you do not want cookies from this website, please close all browser windows of this website, and remove all cookies set from this domain. We may also make use of third-party cookies.
* We may employ basic website analytics that anonymously track the amount of people visiting this website and the frequency of page views.

## 2. Your Account on this Forum

* Active participation in this forum (“posting”) requires you to sign up for an account. Unauthenticated users cannot post content.
* You must be of legal age in your jurisdiction to register an account (e.g., 13 years in the U.S.). If we get notice of you registering an account while being underage, we are required to terminate it.
* Signing up for an account comes at no cost. We do not levy any fees for this forum; all functionality is entirely free of charge.
* By signing up for an account on this forum, you agree to be bound by these terms. If you do not agree to these terms, you may not sign up for an account on this forum. Should we change these terms, and you do not agree to the changes, you are required to terminate your account before the changes go into effect.
* In order to register an account, you must choose a unique username and provide a working email. You must verify this email by clicking on a link that the software will send to your email address.
* You are solely responsible for keeping your account secure. This includes picking a strong password and regularly changing it. If you lose access to your account, you must take immediate measures to rectify this. If a malicious actor has gained access to your account, you agree to immediately, upon receiving knowledge of this fact, attempt to regain access and notify the forum moderators. We may be able to help you regain access to your account.
* This forum implements Two-Factor-Authentication (2FA) using time-based one-time passwords (TOTP). We strongly encourage you to set up 2FA.
* You must provide a regular email address that you have access to. The usage of one-time email-addresses (so-called “throwaway emails”) is prohibited. You are allowed to create an email-alias if your email provider allows you to, but you must ensure that this alias is stable, i.e., remains valid at all times.
* We may employ technical measures to ensure that you do not use a one-time email-address.
* You are required to keep your email updated. If you change your email address, you must change it here, too. Failure to do so may lead to your account being disabled until you update your email address.
* Some email providers may reject emails from this system. We cannot guarantee that all email providers accept emails sent from our system. You are yourself responsible for providing an email address that can receive emails from this forum. If your email is unable to receive the verification email, you can change the email address yourself.
* You may not register more than one account.
* You may not register an account on behalf of an automated script. You must use your account yourself without the help of automated software or any tools that may automate parts or the entirety of your interaction on this forum (exceptions are accessibility software, grammar and spell checkers, etc.).
* Your email address will remain confidential, and only administrators of this forum have the ability to view users' emails. We require a valid email-address to prevent spam, or registration of bots.
* Your email address will never be used to send you unwanted emails. The sole purpose for providing your email address other than preventing spam or bot registration is to send you transactional emails, e.g., when you have forgotten your password. The forum software may also send you other email notifications if you so wish. You can select which additional notifications you receive in your profile settings.
* Your username is not required to be your legal name; aliases or nicknames are allowed, and even encouraged. You cannot change your username once provided. You may ask an administrator whether a username change is possible. We do not guarantee that we will change your username.
* Your username will be made public and appear in the context of content you create on this forum to identify you as the author.
* Your username must be unique within this forum; we cannot guarantee that you can choose any desired username.
* You may not impersonate existing people, organizations, or brands if you do not have the written consent to do so. However, you may reference them in your username. (Example: “Zettlr” would violate this term, while “A Zettlr user” is acceptable.)
* Your username may not contain offensive language in any way, neither plain nor coded (e.g., “1337sp34k,” or using keywords such as “14 words”). This includes, but is not limited to, sexual language or language unsuitable for children, teens, and adolescents; hateful language; racist or white-supremacist language; homophobic, transphobic, or LGBTQI\*-discriminatory language; or any other language that humans may perceive to be offensive using common sense.
* We apply our own judgment in determining whether we deem a username in violation of these terms or not. If we find your username in violation, we reserve the right to change your username unilaterally. We may pick a random new username for you, or ask you for a preference. Using a violating username may also lead to the termination of your account, based solely on our judgment.
* Any personal information that identifies you (primarily your email address) will solely be used to provide you with the functionality to participate in this forum. We will not provide any of your data to third parties.
* We reserve the right to disable or block your account at any time without providing reasons.

## 3. Account Termination

* You may terminate your account at any time without providing reasons.
* We may offer you the ability to delete your account yourself; but you can also submit your termination request to any administrator or moderator. You never have to provide reasons as to why you wish to terminate your account.
* Termination of your account implies removing your personally identifying information (PII) from our servers immediately, but your posts will remain as a public archive of gathered knowledge.
* You may submit a request to delete your posts and replies, too, which we decide on a case-by-case basis. We will always delete posts if required by law or regulations.

## 4. Using OAuth

These terms apply if you add an OAuth provider to your forum account.

* You may sign up and log in to this forum using an OAuth provider (sometimes also known as “social login”) instead of using a password. OAuth is a service that enables you to log in to the forum using an existing account from a different provider. This means that you do not have to create a password for your forum account, and instead re-use the login details of your other account.
* You can sign up to this forum by using OAuth instead of using an email/password combination. Likewise, you can add OAuth to an already existing account as an alternative means of logging in.
* Adding an OAuth provider to your account (independent of whether you do so upon sign up, or later), always involves granting a client application that we control access to the data stored in your account at the OAuth provider. This application will identify itself as “Zettlr Community Forum.” We may choose a different name, but always ensure that the client will be identifiable as belonging to Zettlr.
* The OAuth provider you select will receive knowledge about your account on this forum, and they may be able to track your activity on the forum.
* OAuth automates the sign-up process, meaning that, if you use OAuth to sign up for an account, all required profile fields are automatically filled in with information from your other account. You may not be able to change this information later on.
* Depending on the OAuth provider, you may not be able to pick your username, and it might even happen that your email address becomes your username. You are yourself responsible to create an appropriate username, and by using OAuth you acknowledge that you may not be able to change your username.
* Even if you sign up for an account using OAuth, you may have to verify your email address before being able to post content.
* We do not guarantee to maintain integration with any specific OAuth provider. We may add or remove OAuth providers at any time without prior notification. In addition, the provider may cut access to our client at any time. This means that your login may stop working, and that you are unable to log in to this forum using the corresponding OAuth provider. We recommend you create a password to log in to your account directly to ensure that you will remain to be able to log in to your forum account.
* Should the OAuth provider you chose experience a service disruption, you may not be able to log in using OAuth until the disruption is fixed on their end. We are not responsible for these other providers, and you alone are responsible to maintain access to your forum account.
* By using an OAuth provider to sign up and log in, you acknowledge to be subject to these caveats. Using OAuth is always optional and a mere convenience option. We do not take any responsibility for using OAuth.
* You can at any time remove an OAuth provider from your account. By doing so, you remove your ability to log in using this OAuth provider immediately. If you signed up using OAuth and thus never created a password for your account, you must first create a password for your account. Otherwise, you may not be able to access your account anymore. You are yourself responsible to ensure that you can access your account after removing an OAuth provider.

## 5. Posting Content

* You agree that your content will be made public, and as such you release it into the public. You acknowledge that archives and various entities will crawl the public content of this forum (e.g., the Internet Archive). You alone are responsible for ensuring that you can, and are allowed, to post the content you provide to this forum.
* You will follow the rules of this forum, to be found on a separate page, and abide by them for any of your conduct.
* Violating any forum rules will be subject to punishment. Depending on the severity of the violation, any of the following courses of action may be taken by either the administrators or moderators of this forum:
    * For minor violations, you may be notified of your transgression and may be served a written warning without further consequences.
    * For major violations, or if we determine that your conduct violates either the forum rules or these terms regularly, your account may be blocked from posting for either a fixed period, or indefinitely. While this block is in place, you are not allowed to register other accounts to circumvent this block. If we find out that you are attempting to circumvent such a measurement, we will block the secondary account, too and may extend the block of your primary account indefinitely.
    * We may employ other punishments as we deem fit for the type of transgression you made.
* We reserve the right to remove any post or comment you create on this forum without providing reasons.
* You are liable for any of the content you provide, except where regulations make us liable. If content is posted on this forum that violates any laws or regulations, we are required to take it down immediately and do not have to provide a reason.
* You may not post copyrighted content or violate any laws in any jurisdiction with the content you create. This includes linking to websites that contain illegal content, or uploading copyrighted material on any medium (text, image, video, etc.).
* Posting personally identifying information (PII) of any person (so-called “doxxing”) is strictly prohibited. Regardless of whether this was intended by you, this constitutes a major violation and will lead to a permanent block of you on this forum.

## 6. Interactions and Conduct

* You will at all times follow rules of civil discussion. This includes refraining from harmful conduct, even if it is not outlawed in your or our jurisdiction.
* We reserve the right to terminate or block your account in case we determine that your behavior on this forum does not follow generally accepted social norms. These norms include, but are not limited to:
    * harassment
    * anti-social behavior patterns (“trolling”)
    * antisemitic, white supremacist, or other outlawed conduct
    * discrimination based on gender, sex, religion, political views, or any applicable minority status
    * personal attacks (ad hominem argumentation, insults, etc.)
* We reserve the right to determine that your conduct violates orderly conduct regardless of whether it constitutes any type of behavior in the aforementioned list.
* You may report uncivil behavior to forum administrators or moderators to make us aware of any such transgression. While we strive for an inclusive and safe environment for all our users, we reserve the right to come to a different conclusion and not act on your report.

## 7. Damages and Liability

* We provide this forum software as a service to our community, but give no warranty as to its proper function.
* This forum uses the “Flarum” forum software. We cannot guarantee bug-free functionality, and do not take any liability for any material or non-material damages you suffer from the software exhibiting unwanted behavior. We will keep the software updated as we go forward to ensure it remains as bug-free as possible, but we make no guarantees.
* We hereby disclaim all warranties of any kind, express or implied, to the maximum extend allowed by applicable law, including, without limitation, the fitness for a particular purpose and non-infringement. We make no warranty that the service will be error free or that access thereto will be continuous or uninterrupted.
* We waive any liability for harm caused to you by usage of this service to the extent allowed by applicable law; you agree that you use this service at your own discretion. Deciding not to use this service does not imply or cause any drawbacks to you, or your usage of the Zettlr application or any other services.
* We act as soon as we receive notice of harmful content on our website and will rectify such issues within a reasonable time span.

## 8. Changes

* We may, from time to time, update these terms.
* Cosmetic changes such as grammar updates or rewording that does not change the effects of this agreement do not need to be announced and can be implemented from time to time. We will indicate the last date of updates in the header of these terms.
* Any changes to these terms that constitute a significant change will be announced on this website before the change go into effect. You are responsible for checking this forum from time to time to be informed of any such changes.
* You agree to any changes in these terms by continuing your usage. If you do not agree to any of the changes made to this agreement, you must delete your forum account at the latest on the day before these changes go into effect.

## 9. Privacy Policy

### 9.1 Our Handling of Your Data

* We require a few pieces of information from you in order to provide this service to you. This information is stored on our server to facilitate managing your account.
* We aim for data sparsity. We absolutely require you to provide a working and stable email address, a username, and a password, but besides that, all information you provide is optional.
* We will never sell your data or provide it to third parties. The only exception is when we are required to comply with legal requirements.
* We grant all users – regardless of geographical location – the same rights to their data as laid out by the General Data Protection Regulation (see section 9.2).

### 9.2 GDPR

* The server for this forum is located in Germany, and thus we are subject to the European General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR; EU 2016/679).
* The GDPR entitles you to various rights, such as the right to information, the right to be forgotten, and the right to correction. You can exercise any of these rights yourself within the forum software. If exercising some right yourself is not possible, please email us at <info@zettlr.com> to exercise it. You can exercise any right under GDPR regardless of your geographic location, because we believe everybody should have those rights.
* Please note that content that you post on this forum is explicitly exempt from the right to be forgotten. This forum is intended to be public and thus will be archived by various entities over which we have no power. By posting on this website, you recognize that, while you can yourself delete your account (thereby also removing your email address from our system), the same does not apply to any public content you create.
* If we block your account out of any reason, we will retain a copy of your email address to enforce this block. This constitutes a legitimate interest under GDPR.

### 10. Severability

If a provision of these terms is or becomes illegal, invalid or unenforceable in any jurisdiction, that shall not affect the validity or enforceability in that or other jurisdictions of any other provision within these terms.
End ToS