[%# legal/principles.tt
  #
  # Guiding Principles
  #
  # Authors:
  #     Janine Smith <janine@netrophic.com>
  #
  # Copyright (c) 2009 by Dreamwidth Studios, LLC.
  #
  # This program is NOT free software or open-source; you can use it as an
  # example of how to implement your own site-specific extensions to the
  # Dreamwidth Studios open-source code, but you cannot use it on your site
  # or redistribute it, with or without modifications.
  #
%]

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<h2>We are committed to:</h2>

<ul><li><strong>Open access</strong>. We will never make it hard for you to get
your data back from us or move to a different service if you want 
to. We will provide you with tools to facilitate backing up your data, and we will
never try to lock you into using our service in any way.</li>

<li><strong>Interoperability</strong>. We will seek to integrate our service with 
other services on the Internet, following open standards, to allow you 
to work with other sites as much as you want to.</li>

<li><strong>Open source</strong>. We will release every code change we make under 
a generally-accepted open source license, aside from internal 
configuration files and anything we are contractually obligated not to 
publish. We will provide details on what code we don't publish, and let 
you know why. We will work with a community of volunteer developers, and encourage
and nurture the volunteer development process. We are committed to making it easy
for others to install and maintain their own instances of our server code.</li>

<li><strong>Community review</strong>. We will make our development process and 
our business decisions as transparent as possible, and look for 
community feedback at all stages. While we know we can't please everyone all the
time, we know that our users are incredibly diverse, and the ways they use the
site are just as diverse. We will strive to take your feedback into account as 
much as we can.</li>

<li><strong>Respecting privacy</strong>. We will provide you with tools to make 
choices about your privacy, and respect those choices at all times. We 
will never sell or trade your private data. We as a company are committed to 
maintaining your privacy and making it easy for you to show your journal and its
contents to as many -- or as few -- people as you'd like.</li></ul>


<h2>We operate our service under the principles of:</h2>


<ul><li><strong>Transparency</strong>: We believe that you should know why we
make the decisions we make. We will explain our reasoning as much as 
possible. We will make it easy for you to know as much as you want to 
about what we're doing. We will always err on the side of providing more information,
rather than less, whenever possible. At any point, you should feel comfortable that you
understand why we're making the choices we're making.</li>

<li><strong>Freedom</strong>: We believe in free expression. We will not place 
limits on your expression, except as required by United States law or to 
protect the quality and long-term viability of the service (such as 
removing spam). We will provide you with tools that make creativity and 
free expression easy. If, at any point, we have to place restrictions on your
expression, we will tell you why, and work to find the best solutions possible.</li>

<li><strong>Respect</strong>: We believe in the inherent dignity of all human 
beings. We will never discriminate against any group of people. We will 
work hard to maintain inclusive attitudes, use inclusive language, and 
promote inclusiveness at all times. Our <a href="[% site.root %]/legal/diversity">Diversity
Statement</a> isn't just there so we can pat ourselves on the back. It's there because 
we believe that our diversity is our greatest strength.</li></ul>

<h2>We will remain advertising-free.</h2>

<p>We won't accept or display third-party advertising on our service, whether 
text-based or banner ads. We are personally and ideologically against displaying 
advertising on a community-based service. Advertising dilutes the community experience. 
It also changes the site's focus from "pleasing the userbase" to "pleasing the 
advertisers". We believe that our users are our customers, not unpaid content-generators 
who exist only to provide content for others to advertise on. We are committed to 
remaining advertising-free for as long as the site exists.</p>

<p>By "third-party advertising", we mean anything where a company pays us to show 
their banners, graphics, or text advertisement to our users. We may make partnerships 
with other sites in order to add features that we don't have the resources for ourselves. 
If we do this, we will clearly indicate any such features, and we will include 
information in our
<a href="[% site.root %]/legal/privacy">Privacy Policy</a>.</p>