Terms of Service

CentralChat Rules

When connecting to the CentralChat Network or using our forums, you are required to have not only read, but agreed to follow all the rules listed below. You are required to periodically check this page for updates, as we reserve the right to change or modify it without prior notice.

CentralChat-owned room rules

Chat rooms owned by CentralChat include #chat, #harrypotter, #runescape, #hptrivia, #uno and #helpdesk.

1. All conversation must conform to a PG rating.
2. Excessive flooding is not allowed. Flooding does nothing but annoy other users. Flooding is defined as the entering of more than five lines of text within five seconds.
3. The use of any script other than an away system is not permitted. MP3 advertisment scripts are no longer allowed due to overuse.
4. No bot may join a CC-owned room unless approved by a CentralChat Administrator.
5. The advertisement of any Web site is prohibited, as is entering a CentralChat channel with intent to advertise. This often frustrates and annoys users on the said channel. The occasional posting of links is permitted so long as the links are suitable for a PG audience.
6. Deliberately evading the swear filter will not be tolerated. Censored cursing is, however, permitted in moderation, as determined by any present CentralChat Helpers or Staff.
7. The discussion of illegal topics or the reference to any illegal material/conduct is not permitted.
8. Religious and/or political discussion is permitted so long as it does not turn into an argument and is not insulting or offensive to any chatters.
9. The use of racial, religious, or ethnic slurs is not tolerated and will result in a channel ban.
10. Harassment of any kind will not be tolerated and may result in removal from the channel or network as determined by Helpers or Staff.

These rules are enforced by CentralChat robots, Helpers and Staff. Failure to comply with channel rules may result in a kick or ban from that channel.

If you are kicked or banned and don't understand why, first contact the person responsible for your kicking or banning. If they fail to explain, or you believe they are abusing their powers, please join the help channel #helpdesk. Try to provide logs as well as the exact time/date the situation occurred.

Private channel rules

The operators of any private channel are free to enforce any rules they wish so long as they conform with the Network Rules. Private channel owners are free to use the CentralChat-owned chat room rules as a basis for their own rules.

Network Rules

1. Use of CentralChat for the promotion of illegal activities is prohibited.
2. Harassment of any type will not be tolerated on this server.
3. The use of BotNets or any type of malicious script including flood bots, clone scripts or spambots is not allowed.
4. Do not mass private message (whisper) or harass other users in private message. If you feel a user is violating you within a private message, please seek a CC staff member, try to provide logs. You can also ignore individual users using the /ignore command.
5. Flooding with malicious intent or excessively flooding the server is prohibited.
6. Anyone under the age of 13 must have parental permission to use our forums and chats.
7. Do not under any circumstance threaten to do or cause bodily harm to a user on this network. CentralChat prides itself on being a safe and fun place for people of all ages to converse with on and other. By threatening a user, you are not only offending the user, but ruining that persons sense of saftey. If you are caught threatening a user you may receive and instant network wide ban.
8. CentralChat is a family-oriented network - 18+ discussion is permitted as long as the chat room is made secret (mode +s) so that younger chatters cannot inadvertently join an overage discussion. Discussion within CentralChat-owned rooms must be PG rated.
9. Any channels with a set topic containing 18+ content must be made secret (+s)
10. The advertisement of any other IRC server/network is prohibited, as well as entering a CentralChat channel with intent to advertise. This includes "inviting" people to go to a different IRC server. The CentralChat network is not maintained so that other networks can steal our users.
11. Warez is illegal and not permitted. Filesharing bots are permitted so long as the shared content is legal.

Note:

We reserve the right to terminate or deny your connection at any time with or without warning for failure to adhere to the above rules. The CentralChat Staff and Administration also reserve the right to impose further restrictions on a case-by-case basis. These restrictions do not need to be outlined in the policies beforehand and may be imposed at the discretion of any CentralChat Staff member.

Further Information

Everything that takes place on CentralChat is logged. The technology we use (IRC) is completely different to most Java-based chats (e.g. Yahoo! Chat), and we can (and have done, and will in future), ban anyone who breaks these rules. For serious offenses, Internet Service Providers may be contacted. We log the IP addresses of all users that connect to CentralChat and this information, along with the time and date of the connection, can be linked to an exact account on the particular ISP, so that the names and addresses of abusive users can be identified by their ISP. These connection logs may be sent to Law Enforcement officers if deemed necessary by a Server Administrator. Your IP address, however, is kept hidden from other chatters and will not be revealed by us to other chatters for any reason.

Harassment, impersonation, slander and libel are all illegal (in the vast majority of countries) but usually considered easier to get away with on the Internet than in real life. This is not the case on CentralChat: we will ban users that harass, impersonate, use slanderous or libelous comments and we will, if necessary, take people to court and/or assist with any persons or organizations wishing to take abusive users to court.

Privacy Policy

Although you do not have to register with us to use our services, we do provide two services - ChanServ and NickServ - for registering channels (chat rooms) and nicks (chat names) respectively. It is vital that you keep your passwords secret. When registering a channel, an email address is not needed. An email address is only needed for registering a nick name.

We Promise to:

1. Keep your email private; we will not supply it to any third party organisations or persons.
2. Never email you, except to email you your password if you ever forget it (unless you have specifically signed up for one of our mailing lists).
3. Automatically delete your email address if you do not use your registered name after approximately four weeks.

Disclaimer

We cannot control the actions of individuals on our chat network. We can only take action against events we see. We will always try our best. You can always ignore anyone who offends you but we cannot make any guarantee that offensive material will not appear on our chat servers.

CentralChat has a number of volunteers who give their time to help. However them doing so does not make what they say the opinion or action of CentralChat. If you have an enquiry of CentralChat's stance on any matter and are confused please contact the Administration.