litphoria

I would like a TOS, for your benefit and ours.

From what I understand, you need a terms of service at the very least to limit your liability, and to create a mutual contractual agreement on provision and usage of the service. (Like the typical "I'm not liable for anything, and if this breaks your stuff it's your fault." found at the beginning of terms of use.)

Likewise, it can give us a clear understanding of what the deal is here. For one major issue: privacy! What are you able to look at? How will our data be used, and how long will it be kept, and who will be able to see it for what purposes? What will happen to deleted data: is it stored indefinitely, is it deleted immediately, is it kept around for a defined period then removed? If it's kept around, for what purpose? This is important stuff to know, to understand what you'll do with the sensitive information we're putting in your hands.

Some understanding of the rules here would also be good. Better to define those than leave them undefined! I don't expect we'll necessarily need a code of conduct, but something to advise what kind of behaviour is okay and what isn't, and what the consequences may be. For instance: verbally abusing a player (but bearing in mind some people in the agewalled sections of the site are into that sort of thing or w/e).

Yes, a TOS would be great. Also, it would prevent people from trying to attack you. Without a TOS, as it stands now, people could claim that your site has caused damage, or if someone gets a stalker on here, or something happens that's criminal (say, posting of real child pornography) ... you are not protected and authorities could shut down the site. Stating in a TOS that any illegal activities on the site will be removed immediately and that the User risks a ban on the matter, you would protect the site from such cases. Sad to say, but if you don't get any law backing... Litphoria maybe forced to close down due to that. Especially as the pictures that the profiles use are stored on your server. If something indecent goes through, your providers may decide to destroy all data to protect themselves. Right now, it may not be necessary, but eventually, it will become a necessity.

Impression seems to be positive, so I'm opening this up for endorsements to see how much people want this.

Note, that ToSs are complicated creatures. For a site like this that consumes (and retains) quite a lot of user data it'll be even more complicated. I will have to set up a meeting with a lawyer and pay several hundred to get a real legit ToS that will work in all cases, but as that is very pricey I may just use a generator and tweak one to cover in the mean time until more people are using the site and I can more easily justify dropping that much money on it.

You could probably grab F-list's ToS and change it to fit your needs, as F-List provides a similar service, the ToS being similar could be justified easily.

I wouldn't grab FList's TOS simply because FList's TOS is designed specifically for FList and, well, Litphoria ISN'T FList. Unless both sites will function identically in both mechanics and administration (please god no) then it would be inappropriate and prove a lot of work to reword the legalese to fit, at which point you'd have better luck making a new one. I'd say, personally, that a set of rules and a basic 'when you sign up you agree not to do x' would be in order until the site gains enough traction to justify investing in a proper, ironclad, legalese TOS.

Sure, anyone can write a ToS, but lawyer-level expertise would ensure it's written well and does what it's supposed to do (waives and assigns liabilities appropriately, etc).