Butch-Femme.com -- TOS

Terms of Service for Butch-Femme.com

The basic use of Butch-Femme.com is provided free of charge as a conditional gift to the Butch-Femme community under these Terms of Service and corresponding Guidelines. Access to this community resource is not a “legal right”, so please keep in mind that you are a guest on a private server. Understand that by logging on to Butch-Femme.com or any affliate sites as a guest or a regular member, you are indicating your agreement to be bound by these Terms Service and Guidelines.

The Site Administrators appreciate the good people who make Butch-Femme.com such a nice home for so many, and we are glad you found us. By agreeing to these terms as you engage the community resources on Butch-Femme.com and affiliate sites, you're helping to keep this place clean and well-lit by taking responsibility for your own actions. The Site Administrators have created these rules and guidelines to protect our online community, and to ensure that Butch-Femme.com remains a supportive and fun haven for Butches and Femmes to log into. Also, by making these conditions clear up front, the Site Admins offer clear communication regarding the actions that will be taken should someone deliberately cause problems in our community. Be aware that we log all IP addresses to this site. Butch-Femme.com is policed by the community at large. If you encounter another member who isn't abiding by these Terms of Service or Guidelines, please contact us.

1. Acceptance of Terms of Use
The Terms of Service and corresponding Guidelines for your continued use of is subject to changes and updates, and it is your responsibility as a user of this site to discontinue use of Butch-Femme.com and affiliate sites if you do not agree with any changes to the Terms of Service or Guidelines. Your continued use of Butch-Femme.com and affiliate sites will signify your acceptance of any change in the terms and conditions set forth herein. Any mention of Butch-Femme.com assumes that affiliate sites and resources are also included in these terms, and that the Guidelines for conduct are also a part of the Terms of Service and subject to the same agreements. The site owners, Administrators, List Wranglers, Moderators, and other community leaders and volunteers shall not be liable to you for any breach of these Terms of Service. If you do not agree to these Terms of Service and Guidelines, please cease logging into Butch-Femme.com.

2. Content of Messages and Abuse of Services
You alone are responsible for the content and consequences of your messages in chat rooms, the Forum, in personal ads, on mailing lists and all other services provided on Butch-Femme.com and affiliate sites. We will not remove your accounts, messages, ads, and/or photos for you as a service; however, we do reserve the right to remove or edit any content on our web site at our discretion. The Site Administrators also reserve the right to immediately terminate your access to our services and contact both Abuse.Net and your service provider or law enforcement officials if we become aware and determine, in our sole discretion, that you are violating any of the following terms:

You agree not to use abuse contacts with other Butch-Femme.com community members and users in public or in private, or to use our member database to send or post on any place on Butch-Femme.com or affiliate sites any message or material of any kind or nature that is divisive, unlawful, harassing, libelous, defamatory, abusive, rude, advertising, threatening, harmful, vulgar, obscene, hateful, racially offensive, inaccurate, or otherwise objectionable. Nor will you encourage conduct nor post or send any material of any kind that could fragment the community or silence others, incite problems for the Site Administrators, cause other members to report your posts, or make other users feel unwelcome or unsafe. You agree that you will attempt to state your opinions with respect and tolerance for others and to resolve disagreements in private. You agree not to make your personal dramas public, or name names of other users who may be embarrassed by your posts, or post information from other sites, journals, private messages, or blogs to embarrass, belittle, or disturb the privacy of another member. You agree not to post anything that may constitute a criminal offense, give rise to civil liability or otherwise violate any applicable local, state, national or international law or regulation, and you understand that the site Admins at Butch-Femme.com will cooperate fully with any law enforcement officials and/or agencies in the investigation of any person or persons who use our community resource to engage in criminal or libelous action. The Butch-Femme.com Site Administrators reserve the right to delete and/or preserve any such material. You further agree to abide by and uphold the Terms of Service, and to assist the site owners in upholding the spirit of community on Butch-Femme.com and any affiliate sites.
Butch-Femme.com and affiliate sites are to be used by you for your personal use only. Do NOT use our resources or our database of members for spamming information about other sites or competing resources; engaging in any fundraising, charity, or boycotting efforts; or sending invitations to Butch-Femme.com related gatherings without prior consent, especially where money is involved. Unless prior written consent from the owners of Butch-Femme.com and any affiliated sites has been granted in writing, any use by you of any other user's information, personal or otherwise, for any mass-marketing or any commercial purpose or to obtain direct financial gain is strictly prohibited. If you attempt to use our resources for your own gain financially or socially, or attempt to damage the reputation of our site or defame our character and standing in the community at large, the site owners fully reserve the right to seek legal counsel and prosecute in civil or criminal court.
You agree that you will not use our resources for fundraising (including fundraising efforts for this site without prior consent), boycotting, chain letters, junk mail, 'spamming,' solicitations (commercial or non-commercial, including solicitations to join other web communities) or bulk communications of any kind including but not limited to distribution lists to any person who has not given specific permission to be included in such a list.
You further agree that you will not use our name “Butch-Femme.com”, nor our reputation or resources and mailing lists to engage in any political activity, fundraising effort, charity raising, boycotting activity, or to send invitation to our members to gather for any activity that requires a fee, dues, or donations for any reason without prior consent from the site owners. We ask that users contact us before organizing any events or activities advertised to our users.
You agree not to impersonate any other person or entity, whether actual or fictitious, including impersonating another user, a Webmaster, a Site Admin, Moderator, or any volunteer of Butch-Femme.com. You further agree not to use an inappropriate member name of any kind, or to upload an icon or photo that may potentially offend others. You further agree not to create or use multiple accounts. IP addresses are visible to Moderators and you will be banned if you use multiple accounts to cause any sort of havoc.
You agree not to use our resources for stalking purposes, and to resolve breakups and personal relationship issues offsite. We do not get involved in the drama of our users nor take sides in breakups and relationship issues. We will suspend accounts of anyone using these resources to work out personal issues.
You agree not to post or use Butch-Femme.com to distribute or send any illegal material of any kind, including but not limited to, illegal or copyrighted material in the form of text, graphics, video, programs or audio. Posting content or participating in any form of discussion with the intention to commit any illegal activity is strictly prohibited.
Since we do not employ strict age verification services through COPPA guidelines, and because many of our users access the site at work or at home in front of children or family members, you agree not to post images of a pornographic nature. You also agree to post a warning in the subject line or a clear title that reflects the subject of the post when submitting any stories or words which might be deemed pornographic.
You agree to respect the privacy of other users and offer a degree of anonymity in regard to what is shared on Butch-Femme.com.
You agree not to act as a Moderator unless you have been appointed that position by the Admins.
If you decide to leave the community, you agree to do so in peace without making public announcements designed to garner attention.
You agree to help the community uphold the standards of this site by making the Adminsor Moderators aware of any breach of these terms by other users.

3. Access Denied/Termination
Users are asked to accept the Terms of Service and follow these Guidelines while interacting in this online community. Butch-Femme.com is intended as a peaceful haven specifically for those who self-identify as Butch or Femme. It is a requirement of your membership that you invest in fostering the spirit of goodwill and community and to interact with tolerance for others. You agree to respect and follow the guidance of site Admins, Moderators, and official volunteers. Upon any breach by you of these Terms of Service, the Site Admins of Butch-Femme.com reserve the right, at their sole discretion, to immediately suspend or terminate without notice or warning your ability to access Butch-Femme.com and/or any other affiliated web sites. If a banned member continues to attempt to access the site by creating multiple accounts, we will consider this action to be harrassment and we will take the appropiate action, i.e. banning your IP from any access and contacting your ISP and/or Abuse.Net. As per the Terms of Service, RESTRICTION means that for the specified period of time, you will refrain from interacting or participating on the web site, including sending PMs, posting in the Forums and using the chat rooms. If you choose to test or ignore restriction, you understand you can be immediately and permanently banned by the Site Administrators. When the specified period of time has passed, you are welcome to particpate again provided you uphold the Terms of Service. There is no rule that you have to be warned or have a "time out" before being permanently banned. Your access to Butch-Femme.com is at the sole discretion of the Admins. If you have been BANNED, your access is permanently denied and the ban will not be revoked under any circumstance. If you have other questions about our policies about denying access, CLICK HERE .

4. Registration Information/Privacy Policy
When you utilize certain resources on Butch-Femme.com, you will be required to provide contact information such as an email address, etc. To protect your privacy, the owners of Butch-Femme.com promise to never sell to any third party your name, address, email address and member name, or share your personal information except to the extent necessary to comply with applicable laws, police investigations, or in legal proceedings where such information is relevant. Butch-Femme.com reserves the right to ban you from our services if you create multiple accounts or provide false or misleading information to us or to other users. We regret we cannot honor requests to delete user accounts nor to delete photos or posts for you.

5. Copyright
Agreement to these Terms of Service also constitutes agreement of our Privacy Policy, which can be found here. You acknowledge that Butch-Femme.com permits access to content that is protected by copyrights, trademarks and other intellectual and proprietary rights .These Rights are valid and protected in all media and technologies existing now or later developed; and except as explicitly provided otherwise, the Terms of Service and applicable copyright, trademark and other laws govern your use of such content. Any material posted by users falls under the copyright protection of Butch-Femme.com. You may not copy, reproduce, retransmit, distribute, publish, commercially exploit or otherwise transfer any material subject to any Rights. All works are copyright by the owners of Butch-Femme.com unless another author is listed, (as in our Writing section or in original poetry or stories posted to our Forums by users.) Contributors to Butch-Femme.com need to be aware that they are also permitting any user to access, display, view, store, and reproduce such content for personal use. Subject to the foregoing, the owner of such content placed on Butch-Femme.com retains any and all Rights that may exist in such content by use of those other than the site owners. Any materials used on this web site that are not authored by the site owner are used under the Fair Use Act, not for profit. The burden of determining that any information, software, images or any other content on Butch-Femme.com is not protected by Rights rests with you, the user. You acknowledge that the Site Administrators of Butch-Femme.com may acquire Rights to use any posted materials, and that you will not acquire any of those Rights by downloading such materials on our web site, including copy, graphics and logos we have developed for this site, including that which is posted by other users.

6. Registrations, Passwords and Sponser (Paid) Memberships
You are responsible for maintaining the confidentiality of any user names and passwords that you create for use on Butch-Femme.com. You shall be responsible for all uses of your registration, whether or not authorized by you. You agree to immediately notify the Site Administrators of Butch-Femme.com of any unauthorized use of your registration or password. No one (including the Admin, owners, and Moderators) has access to user passwords. Passwords are encrypted in our system for your privacy. Only you or someone who has access to your designated email can retrieve your password by having the system mail the password to the email address you provided when you registered. If you are banned for violating the TOS, it is understood that the funds you donated to upgrade your account are forfeited. We cannot issue refunds. You cannot transfer "ownership" of a paid account, nor re-sell Bash tickets.

7. Meetings and Gatherings
You agree to make the site owners aware if you plan a gathering for members of our site. You agree not to host any events where fees will be charged for users of our site. You agree to only invite and allow current members in good standing to attend any events hosted in the name of our site. Your expressly agree that using the resources and mingling with the other users on Butch-Femme.com online and/or in person is done solely at your own risk. The site owners and site moderators are not responsible or liable for any mishaps that occur at any gathering or meeting between members and users of this site, including contacts through personal ads, meetings organized by members, Admins, or Moderators of Butch-Femme.com and/or affiliated sites, or events organized by the site owners. The site owners accept no responsibility for the actions of any members from this site to those who host events or attend events, and you agree to waive liability for direct, consequential or incidental damages arising therein. The owners of Butch-Femme.com are neither responsible nor liable for your safety or well-being at events or meetings associated with Butch-Femme.com, and you agree not to hold the site owners responsible. Furthermore, the owners of Butch-Femme.com are not responsible for any accidents or mishaps resulting from organized or spontaneous travel to meet other members and users of Butch-Femme.com.

8. Disclaimer of Warranties
The Site Administrators make NO WARRANTY that services on our web site will be un-interrupted, timely, secure, or error-free. This resource is provided "as is" and "as available". You understand and agree that Butch-Femme.com does not guarantee the accuracy or completeness of any information on the site, especially in rendering any legal, medical, counseling, or other advice. The Site Administrators shall not be responsible for any loss or damage caused or alleged to have been caused directly or indirectly by the exchange of information suggested or referred to by any user, owner, or volunteer of Butch-Femme.com. As a convenience to our members, we may provide links or allow users to provide links to resources to other sites which are beyond our control and we accept no responsibility for content on sites offered as links. We make no representations as to the suitability of users accessing our personal ads. The owners of Butch-Femme.com specifically disclaim liability for direct, consequential or incidental damages arising from such personal ads or contacts on our site. By posting a personal advertisement on Butch-Femme.com, you are promising that the content of your advertisement is true and that you will indemnify the site owners against any claims which may arise from your advertisements and postings, and you waive any claims against the site owners for your reliance upon statements in advertisements you respond to.

9. Availability of Services and Storage of Content
The Butch-Femme.com Site Administrators assume no responsibility for the deletion of or failure to store messages for our Forum, or the reliability of our mail programs. We are not responsible for outages or data loss, and we will prune our message boards and any of our web pages as we deem necessary. Because our site runs on a database, we can not remove photos and posts for you once you have submitted them to the site. You are only allowed 30 minutes to edit or delete a post. If you are a member is good standing, you can delete and edit your own photos in our Gallery. If your access to the site is denied for breach of TOS, you understand you will no longer be able to access your photos. If you decide to cease accessing this community site, you understand that we cannot honor any requests to delete member accounts.

10. Ownership of Resources
Butch-Femme.com is a community site largely staffed by volunteers (i.e. mailing list wrangler, forum moderator, chat moderator, etc.). It is expressly understood that any resource a community volunteer is managing belongs solely to the owners of Butch-Femme.com. If a volunteer leaves or is removed from duty, that volunteer agrees not to replicate our existing resources in another location online. We welcome and encourage other online communities that stand on their own, but if a disgruntled user organizes a "revolt" from our site to create an alternative in direct opposition, this can cause an unnecessary and hostile division in our community, especially if our resources are used in the process. If you have a sincere desire to dedicate your time to further establish Butch-Femme community online, the site owners would prefer to act as allies in your efforts.

11. Remedies for Breach of these Terms
In the event that the Site Administrators determine, at their sole discretion, that you have breached any portion of these Terms of Service or the related Guidelines, or have otherwise demonstrated conduct inappropriate for the community spirit of Butch-Femme.com, the Site Administrators reserve the right to take action in one or more of the following ways:

Warn you privately or publicly that you have violated these Terms of Service or the Guidelines.
Put you on moderated status.
Put your account on a "time out" for a specified period of time.
Immediately deny your access to Butch-Femme.com and any affiliated sites without notice.
Change your member profile to reflect a banned status.
Ban your IP address from any access to our server.
Delete your account and any content provided by you at our discretion.
Publicly use any content you have provided as an example of bad behavior.
Send a formal complaint to your service provider.
Report your activities and send your IP log to Abuse.Net.
Sue for damages if applicable.
And/or send content to and/or fully cooperate with the proper law enforcement authorities for further action, if necessary.

For more information on Butch-Femme.com,
please see our Privacy Policy , and our Copyright Notice.