Rules of Conduct

Please Note: Whether or not you read these rules, you will be held to them. It is in your best interest to ensure you read and understand them.
All site rules are subject to change, modification, or additional clarificaion without warning or notice.
Last Update: Sunday, 15 October, 2023 @ 10:39 PM

As a global community for creativity and self-expression, Side 7 is committed to supporting and protecting freedom of speech. At the same time, we maintain a set of rules against behavior and posts that jeopardize our users, threaten our service, and damage our community. Freedom of speech does not mean freedom from responsibility or consequences.

What Side 7 is for:

Side 7 celebrates creativity. We want you to express yourself freely and use Side 7 to reflect who you are, and what you love, think, and stand for. We want you to enjoy the services we offer, and use them to help you network, find like-minded individuals, and evolve your own skills.

What Side 7 is not for:

Copyright or Trademark Infringement.

Respect the copyrights and trademarks of others. If you aren't allowed to use someone else's copyrighted or trademarked work (either by license or by legal exceptions and limitations such as fair use), don't post it.

We accept copyright and trademark infringment claims, and take them very seriously. We ask that the submitter of the claim provide evidence to back up their claims, such as links to original works or sources, or other documentation supporting the claim. Without such evidence, we do not have a valid means of confirming a claim and acting upon it.

All claims meeting the above requirements will result in the posted work being made unavailable on the site while an investigation is underway. During the investigation, the poster of the work will have opportunities to file counter-claims with their own evidence to support such a counter-claim.

Should we ultimately decide the work in question is infringing upon a copyright or trademark, we will remove it. We understand that copyrights and trademarks can be a complicated issue, and not everyone understands what they mean and how to avoid infringing on intellectual property rights. As such, we take each claim against a member of the site on a case-by-case basis.

However, if a member is shown to have a repeating, ongoing pattern of such infringements that are substantiated, pemanent account suspension will occur. While not always possible, we try to stick to a "3 strikes" rule. But, if a member has demonstrated a complete lack of regard towards others' copyrights or trademarks, immediate action may occur.

Report copyright or trademark infringement.


AI-generated Art.

While it is true that AI-generated art is becoming impressive, using AI to generate art does not make you an artist. Moreover, in order for AI to generate art, they need to be trained by having them learn to imitate existing art. That means that they are exposed to vast databases of artwork created by people who put their effort, skills, and time into the works. In most cases, these artists have not given their consent to have their artwork used for this purpose. As a result, AI art generators spit out images that resemble these artists works.

We take this theft and misuse of people's works seriously, and as a result do not welcome AI-generated works on the site. This site is about your work; let's keep the focus on that.

Report AI-generated work.


Misattribution or Non-Attribution.

Make sure you always give proper attribution and include full links back to original sources. When including characters that belong to others, creating fan-works based on material developed by others, or perform a cover or rendition of a written or musical work, you must include attribution to the original creator. If possible, including a link to an official source is encouraged.

Report misattribution or non-attribution.


Proselytizing.

Please do not use Side 7 as your personal platform to attempt to sway others to your opinions, political views, and religious beliefs. We encourage you to engage in discourse that might explore such views and opinions, but Side 7 is not the place to actively attempt to convert others to your way of thinking.

Report proselytizing.


Hate Speech.

No content, description, or message posted on Side 7 may contain belittling, demeaning, or dehumanizing commentary of another person or groups based on race, ethnic origin, nationality, religion, sexuality, gender identity, age, disability, or disease. Nor may they contain threats against or language designed to incite violence against said groups. This is one issue that will result in a permanent suspension of your account.

Keep in mind that a post might be mean, tasteless, or offensive without necessarily encouraging violence or hatred. In these cases, this content is okay, and we encourage you to use Side 7 to speak up, challenge ideas, raise awareness or generate discussion and debate.

Report hate speech.


Harassment.

Don't engage in targeted abuse, bullying, or harassment. Don't engage in the unwanted sexualization or sexual harassment of others. If someone is sending you unwanted messages, or reblogging your posts in an abusive way, we encourage you to be proactive. Report them, and block the hell out of them. And if someone blocks you, don't attempt to circumvent the block feature or otherwise try to communicate with them.

Report harassment


Spam.

Don't spam people. Do not post spam-filled comments, descriptions, journal posts, or send other members spammy messags. Don't use deceptive means to generate revenue or traffic, or create accounts with the primary purpose of affiliate marketing. Spam doesn't belong on Side 7.

Report spam.


Impersonation and Non-Genuine Behavior.

Don't do things that may cause confusion between your account and another person, organization, or company, like registering a deliberately confusing username or pretending to be a celebrity or an elected official. Don't impersonate anyone. While you're free to ridicule, parody, or marvel at the alien beauty of Benedict Cumberbatch, you can't pretend that you're actually Benedict Cumberbatch.

Report impersonation or non-geniune behavior.


Privacy Violations.

Don't use Side 7 to deceptively obtain personal information. Don't post content that violates anyone's privacy, especially personally identifying or confidential information like credit card numbers, social security numbers, or unlisted contact information. Absolutely do not post non-consensual pornography—that is, private photos or videos taken or posted without the subject's consent.

Report privacy violations


Abuse of Minors.

Don't post or solicit content that features the abuse of a minor, that includes suggestive or sexual content involving a minor or anyone that appears to be a minor, or that facilitates or promotes child sexual abuse. "Content" may include photos of real individuals, illustrations, animation, audio of or describing such actions, or text. Posting or sharing child sexual abuse material is a serious crime for which we have no tolerance. We report all such instances to child protection organizations and law enforcement around the world, including the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.

Report abuse of minors.


Promotion or Glorification of Self-Harm.

Don't post content that actively promotes or glorifies self-harm. Posts of this nature include content that urges or encourages others to: purposefully injure themselves; engage in and normalize anorexia, bulimia, or other eating disorders; or attempt to die by suicide rather than participating in healthier, more helpful activities, such as, seeking counseling or treatment, or joining together in supportive conversation with those suffering or recovering from depression or other conditions. Discussion about these behaviors is incredibly important. Communities like Side 7 can be exceptionally helpful to people struggling with these difficult conditions. We encourage Side 7 to be a place that facilitates awareness, support and recovery, and we will remove only those posts that cross the line into active promotion or glorification of self-harm.

Report self-harm.


Shock Content, Gore and Mutilation.

Don't post content which includes extreme violent content or gore just to be shocking. Don't showcase the mutilation or torture of human beings, animals (including bestiality), or their remains. Don't post content that encourages or incites violence, or glorifies acts of violence or the perpetrators. This does not mean that content cannot contain violence, but violence should not be the focus or purpose of the content.


Publicly Accessable Adult Content.

Adult content has its place, and that place is in the Adult-Only rating category. Adult content has no place in publicly accessible areas of the site where the viewer has no option to deliberately opt-into seeing such content. These areas include, but are not limited to: forum posts, comments, content descriptions, biographies and profiles, journal posts, or anywhere else on the site where any user who is not logged in or who has not activated access to Adult-Only content might see it. See our Ratings Guide for more information on post ratings. Also ensure you read up on our adult content definitions and allowances.


Social Scamming Schemes.

Don't participate in schemes to drive up non-genuine Follows, Likes, Shares, etc. Don't not attempt to or engage in schemes or plans whose purpose is to inorganically drive up numbers or statistics about your account or others'. Don't make bulk or indiscriminate use of messaging or posting features to drive traffic to your website.


Deceptive or Fraudulent Links.

Don't post or share deceptive or fraudulent links. This includes giving links misleading descriptions, putting the wrong attribution information in a post, setting misleading links on content descriptions, forum posts, comments, journal entries, or messages, or embedding links to interstitial or pop-up ads.


Username/URL Abuse or Squatting.

Side 7's usernames/URLs are designed for use by our members, visitors, and general audience. Do not attempt to hoard, manipulate, abuse, or otherwise intentionally pollute Side 7 usernames/URLs.


Mass Registration or Automation.

Don't register accounts or post content automatically, systematically, or programmatically. You are allowed to have multiple accounts for reasonable purposes (e.g., an account for posting SFW content, and one for posting NSFW content). Hording accounts, however, can lead to all accounts being disabled or terminated.


Disruptions, Exploits, or Resource Abuse.

Our servers, admins, moderators, and engineers work hard to keep Side 7 running smoothly. Don't attempt unauthorized use, disruption, or exploitation of Side 7 or our other products and services, or otherwise abuse Side 7's resources.


Unlawful Uses or Content.

Don't use Side 7 to conduct illegal behavior, like fraud or phishing, or the sale of illegal goods.

Report Illegal Use.


Commercial Promotion and Advertisement.

This site is for the promotion and celebration of artists and their works. This may mean earning commissions through the site as a result. This is okay. This site is not for use by companies and commercial entities for the sole purpose of advertising their products and services. Such accounts will be shut down.

Report Commericial Advertising.


If we conclude that you are violating these guidelines, you may receive a notice via email. If you don't explain or correct your behavior, we may take action against your account. Repeat violations of our Rules of Conduct may result in permanent account suspension.

We do our best to ensure fair outcomes, but in all cases we reserve the right to suspend accounts, or remove content, without notice, for any reason, but particularly to protect our services, infrastructure, users, and community. We reserve the right to enforce, or not enforce, these guidelines in our sole discretion, and these guidelines don't create a duty or contractual obligation for us to act in any particular manner.

You can remove your own content whenever you want, of course. If you need help doing that, you can find instructions in our Support FAQ.

If you have questions or feedback, don't hesitate to let us know.

We appreciate your cooperation with our effort to remain an member-friendly and content-friendly site that is suitable to all ages.

View this page to see what is allowed and not allowed for sexual content.

Please be aware, this page discusses sexual content and details for the purposes of defining allowed and disallowed content material.