Rules for Dragonfire accounts

NOTE: This is an archived copy of the Dragonfire Internet Services website. Dragonfire is no longer in operation; please do not attempt to contact any of the addresses listed on this site.

Last updated: 11 December 1998 (see revision history)

Rules for Dragonfire accounts

Yes, we have rules, conditions, and other assorted text, as most (if not all) other Internet service providers do. Most of these rules are probably not important to the vast majority of Dragonfire users; they more or less embody the "common sense" that is expected in Internet use. However, since (unfortunately) there are some people who choose to abuse the Internet, we need to have these rules written down both to make such people aware of the consequences of their actions and to protect us when we take action against such people or when they take action against us.

In writing these rules, we have chosen to forsake the often-seen "legalese" style of precise but sometimes difficult to understand writing, and instead try to strike a balance between clarity and comprehensibility. If you have any questions about the meaning or application of any of the rules and conditions below, please do not hesitate to mail us at admin@dragonfire.net and ask.

At first glance, these rules may seem unusually strict. They are (strict, at least, if perhaps not unusually so). But again, they are more for everyone's protection than to arbitrarily limit what you're allowed to do.

So, getting down to business:

By paying for or using an account on Dragonfire, you agree to follow all rules established by Dragonfire, and you agree with all other conditions below. You also agree that if you break any of these rules, you may be subjected to punishment up to and including the loss of your account. We usually give at least one warning first, however, depending on the severity of the offense.

You are responsible for your account. This includes material on your account, actions done under your account (such as sending E-mail), and so on. In particular, this still applies even if you didn't post the material or take the actions in question. Your password is designed to protect you from anyone else using your account; if someone steals, guesses, or otherwise acquires your password, they can do anything they want in your name. Thus, Dragonfire users are strongly discouraged from giving passwords to anyone. If you need to do so--to let someone help you, for example--you should change your password when the other person is finished. See the FAQ for information on changing your password.
Note that some CGI scripts--sometimes called "message boards" or "bulletin boards"--allow arbitrary Web users to post content to a Web site. These are by no means excluded from this rule, so we discourage their use. If you do wish to have a message board, we recommend using one which allows you to preview all messages before they are posted.

Do not try to gain more privileges than you are granted on Dragonfire. This includes trying to get around resource limits or trying to obtain service you have not paid for, as well as the more obvious things such as attempts to break system security. Try to do any of these and you can expect to lose your account at the least.

You are expected to "help yourself" before asking us for help. We have a FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions list) which answers many commonly asked questions. Nevertheless, we still sometimes see people asking us these questions directly, wasting time we could be using to help people with more legitimate problems. Therefore, we may ignore any questions sent to us which are answered in the FAQ.

We require a valid E-mail address at which to contact you. On Dragonfire, all administrative matters are conducted via E-mail, including payment reminders and receipts, so this is an absolute requirement. Any account whose E-mail address is consistently invalid over a period of two months may be suspended and/or terminated at our discretion. (In general, we suspend such an account first, then wait a while in case the owner simply forgot to mention an E-mail address change.) Additionally, if we request information or action from you and we get a response stating that someone else owns that mailbox, we will treat your E-mail address as invalid and may take action immediately.
Also bear in mind that we require either your password or a reply to a message sent to your E-mail address of record in order to verify any changes to your account. Therefore, if your E-mail address has changed and you have forgotten your password, then you will lose your account!

Restrictions on publicly available material. By "publicly available", we mean here not only Web pages and anonymous FTP files, but anything that can be retrieved by another user. Thus, if you give your password to someone else (reminder: this is strongly discouraged) to download a file from a private area of your account, then that material is "publicly available" as far as these restrictions are concerned. Also, in general, if certain material is not allowed, then links or other references to such material are not allowed either.
Note that while the text below covers specific cases, there is really only one general restriction: We prohibit any material which is illegal or whose primary use is for illegal activity.
- Copyrighted material: This is off-limits, obviously, unless you either have permission from the copyright holder or the material is "fair use" (for example, a short quote from a book). As a specific note, software piracy is not tolerated on Dragonfire; users we find engaging in piracy will have their accounts terminated without warning and may face legal action. Software piracy is distribution of any copyrighted program without permission, such as commercial games (including so-called ROMs, copies of cartridge-based games).
- Obscenity: Among other things, this includes child pornography and so-called hardcore pornography. Obscene material is illegal in the United States and probably most other countries, and is not permitted on Dragonfire. On a related note, if you have something that's not obscene but that is of an adult nature, or something that could be considered "indecent", please indicate that in some way, possibly with a "warning" entry page or a note next to a link.
  Dragonfire's position on pornography in general: We discourage pornographic sites, since they generate far more than their fair share of traffic. We do not prohibit such sites, however, provided they stay within the above guidelines. If you do plan to put up an adult site, keep in mind that we reserve the right to suspend any account we feel is causing degradation of service for other users through massive resource use, or to set limits on traffic for such a site. We also reserve the right to remove any material not explicitly mentioned above if we believe it reflects negatively on Dragonfire or if we consider it harmful to society in general or to particular persons. (See also the "Good Citizen" clause below.)
- Account-cracking software. Breaking into an account, no matter what kind of account it may be or who it may belong to, is like breaking into a house -- you're invading someone else's private property. If we receive and verify any reports of software available from your Dragonfire account being used to break into other accounts, your account will be terminated immediately.
- Software "cracks." These are utilities or documentation on how to obtain illegal access to software; for example, registration codes or programs that modify other programs to defeat built-in protection against copying or restrictions on use. While possession and distribution of such files may not be in itself illegal, their only use (or at least, their main use) is illegal, and therefore they are not allowed.

Stay within your resource limits. For the most part, we do not impose strict limits (disk quotas, etc.) on users; we realize that people may need to exceed those limits for short periods of time on occasion, and we allow for that. However, consistently exceeding those limits, or exceeding them at any time by large amounts, will result in penalties up to and including the loss of your account.

Security issues: If you use CGI scripts or programs on your account, the source code for those programs must be available to us for inspection at any time. See the relevant question in the FAQ for an explanation. Failure to keep current source available may result in anything from removal of the script to termination of your account, depending on circumstances.

Payment: The most important thing to realize is that we do not offer refunds except in very limited circumstances. If you are not sure you want to keep your Dragonfire account, you should probably pay in three-month increments until you have made up your mind; while the one-year payment is less per month than four three-month payments, you will not get any refund if you decide to cancel your account a few months into your year of service. Also, we do not, as a rule, allow late payments; unless you notify us ahead of time, your account may be deleted as little as 14 days after it expires if you have not paid. See the rules about payment (below) for details.

No guarantee of service: Dragonfire does not guarantee any level of service or percentage of uptime. No computer is perfect, and all will malfunction at times; furthermore, there may be occasions on which it is necessary to suspend service to perform system upgrades or maintenance. We do, naturally, try to minimize such downtime, and we invite users and prospective users to view our system event log, which records all major system events (such as server restarts or service outages). However, if you require a guaranteed level of service or uptime, you may want to invest in a more expensive service provider.

The "Good Citizen" clause: All Dragonfire users are expected not to engage in inappropriate or illegal behavior, including (but not limited to):

E-mail bombs (sending very large E-mail messages or large numbers of smaller messages with no useful content)
Spam (see Dragonfire's position on spam for more information)
Harassment, via E-mail or other means
Breaking into or attacking systems
Encouraging others to behave inappropriately or illegally
By using your account, you consent to these limitations on actions and agree to waive any rights you may otherwise have or believe you have which would permit such actions.
If we receive what we consider reasonable evidence of any such actions on your part, whether or not such actions involved use of Dragonfire, we will impose penalties up to and including account termination. Note that we will make no attempts to specifically seek out these actions (we are not trying to be Big Brother); however, should we hear of them, they will be dealt with. The purpose of this rule, as unusual as it may seem, is to serve as a reminder that these actions are not acceptable in any context.

Other conditions on use of Dragonfire accounts:

The decisions of Dragonfire in all Dragonfire-related matters, including the interpretation of these rules, are final.

Should Dragonfire become involved in legal proceedings as a result of material present on your account or actions performed using your account, you will pay immediately upon demand all legal fees, penalties, and other charges incurred by Dragonfire, even if your account is terminated before said legal proceedings are completed. Moreover, should you challenge Dragonfire in any legal action and lose, you will pay all legal fees incurred by Dragonfire as well as any other costs which may be determined in the proceedings. (We have never had to use this clause, and we hope we will never have to.)

You will receive without complaint any E-mail sent from Dragonfire. We will occasionally send messages to all of Dragonfire's users; this is not a "mailing list" as the term is commonly applied to the Internet, and you cannot "unsubscribe". (We have had people complain and even threaten action against us for not removing them from our "mailing list" when they in fact were Dragonfire account owners.) Note that this certainly does not mean you're prohibited from complaining about the content! We only require that you be willing to receive the messages themselves.

Dragonfire reserves the right to suspend your account, delete your account, or delete any data on your account, at any time for any reason with or without notice. (This doesn't mean we'll go around arbitrarily deleting files or accounts; it serves primarily to protect us against users who believe their accounts were deleted unfairly. We have, unfortunately, had to deal with such a case or two, as many people seem to have a tendency to believe themselves above the rules or the law.)

Dragonfire explicitly reserves the right to delete any E-mailbox which consistently (in our sole determination) exceeds quota without sending prior notice or taking any action to preserve the mail so deleted.

Dragonfire reserves the right to change these rules with or without notice. (We will generally give notice of major changes, however.)

Rules regarding payment:

The duration of service paid for with any payment begins:

for a new account, on the date the account was created;
for a pre-existing account, on the expiration date of the account.

Payment for a new account, if not sent with the account request, is due 15 days after the account is created; payment to extend service for an account is due on the expiration date of the account. If a different expiration date is stated by Dragonfire for any account, that date will take precedence.

An account is considered delinquent if we do not receive payment for any outstanding fee for the account within a "grace period" of two weeks (14 days) after the due date of the fee. An outstanding fee is a fee which has not been paid for which Dragonfire has provided some service; this includes, for example, payment of excess bandwidth fees after an account has exceeded its bandwidth limit, but does not include fees for extending service for an account (that is, it is permissible to simply let an account expire if the account has no other outstanding fees). Delinquent accounts are subject to immediate termination. We may also, at our option, choose to withhold any future services from the owner of a delinquent account, to deny the grace period and require payment in advance for any future services, or to take action to recover the outstanding fees. Note that our processing time does not count against this grace period. For example, if we receive your payment 13 days after the due date, and it is not processed until three days later, your account will not be considered delinquent.

All payments are non-refundable once we have started providing service. If you choose to terminate your account before it expires, or if we terminate your account for any reason, you will not be permitted to apply any remaining time on your account to another Dragonfire account, nor will you receive any (prorated or otherwise) refund of payment for service you did not receive because of account termination. If you voluntarily cancel your account, you will be eligible for a refund if and only if you have made an additional payment for a period of service which does not begin until after you cancel your account. (For example, if you pay for a year of service and decide to cancel your account after a month, you are not eligible for a refund.) Dragonfire will make the sole and final determination as to eligibility for refund. Exception: Should Dragonfire's services be completely unavailable for an extended period of time, we may, at our sole discretion, choose to either refund an amount of money or provide a period of free service in compensation. In such a circumstance, we will determine the precise amount of refund or duration of free service at that time.

You will be sent at least one reminder of account payment within the first 30 days of the 40-day period immediately preceding the expiration date of your account. You are fully responsible for being able to receive these reminders; not being able to receive them will not be a valid reason for extending the expiration date of your account. If we do not send an expiration notice until less than 10 days before the expiration date of your account, we will extend the deadline for receiving payment to 24 days after the date on which the notice was sent. If we do not send such a notice at all, the deadline for receiving payment will be 30 days after the expiration date of your account.

If you require paper invoicing, you must supply us with an address, and there will be a service charge of US$10 per item sent by postal mail. You must mark the appropriate line on the payment form as well. Payment will be due 30 days after the item is sent; this due date applies to all fees listed, and will be specified on the mail. Paper invoicing must be requested each time it is desired. If you wish to receive a receipt by postal mail as well, you must specify that in your request (and the same US$10 fee will apply).

Dragonfire reserves the right to alter any fee associated with any of Dragonfire's services or impose new fees with or without prior notice.

Revision history:

11 December 1998: Fixed link to system event log.; Minor textual changes.
6 December 1998: Added explicit notice that E-mailboxes may be deleted without notice for consistently exceeding quota.
17 October 1998: Added disclaimer stating that Dragonfire does not guarantee any level of service or uptime.
13 July 1998: Added "consent to waive rights" sentence in Good Citizen clause.; Minor textual changes.
7 July 1998: Added "immediately upon demand" and "penalties and other charges" to clause regarding legal proceedings.; Minor textual changes.
3 June 1998: Added "Payment" section in main body of rules.; Added note that refunds may be given if service is paid for but the account is cancelled by the owner before that period of service begins.; Minor textual changes.
26 April 1998: Added note that payment deadline will be extended if an expiration notice is not sent within 10 days of the account's expiration date.
1 February 1998: Minor textual changes.
13 October 1997: Clarified non-refundability of payments.
23 September 1997: Added explicit note that adult material not covered directly by the existing rules on such material may still be removed if we believe it necessary.; Added explicit note that encouraging others to perform actions prohibited by the "Good Citizen" clause is not permitted.
7 August 1997: Revised delinquency section to reflect the fact that choosing to not pay for continued service for an account (i.e. choosing to let the account expire) is perfectly acceptable and should not be considered a delinquent payment/account.; Clarified that partial refunds will not be issued if an account is terminated before its expiration date.; Minor textual changes.
17 July 1997: Minor textual changes.
1 July 1997: Revised note on pornography to remove text about possible banning of adult sites and add reminder that Dragonfire may suspend or limit traffic to such sites at its discretion.; Minor textual changes.
11 June 1997: Added statement that users who take Dragonfire to court and lose must pay all of Dragonfire's legal fees.; Merged payment rules into main text.; Changed delinquency "grace period" from 15 days to two weeks (14 days) to accord with current practice.; Changed statement of a 30-day and 10-day reminder to at least one reminder within the last 30 days.; Added statement that Dragonfire may change fees and impose new fees without prior notice.
3 May 1997: Added note that Dragonfire is considering banning adult sites due to excessive resource usage.; Added note that resource usage far above limits at any time may result in action being taken immediately against the account.; Added specific note that these rules are subject to Dragonfire's interpretation.; Various minor changes in the text and HTML code.; Corrected "1996" to "1997" in following change note.
6 April 1997: Complete rewrite. We have available the final copy of the previous version for comparison.

Note: "Minor textual changes" and similar phrases mean changes in the text (for example, to correct typographical errors or clarify weak phrasing) which do not result from a change in Dragonfire's implementation of the rules and are not expected to cause a change in how the majority of people understand the rules.

Andy Church