I want to start by saying thank you to all the members on the site, as content moderation has been extremely minimal, and the exchange of information/networking on the site has been very positive! I am very pleased with the growth of the site, and the way that people are using it.

I do want to post the Acceptable Use Policy and Moderation Policy for Barista Exchange which ALL members are required to follow. This is in addition to the Terms of Service below.

Acceptable use policy

You must abide by the Acceptable Use Policy when submitting content to the moderator for display on the website. In submitting content, you agree:

(a) not to impersonate any other person or falsely claim to represent any other person, whether living or dead, real or fictitious. Making false, misleading or deceptive representations that you are another person or character can amount to a criminal offense and give rise to civil liability;

(b) not to submit content that violates the legal rights of others;

(c) not to submit content that is misleading, deceptive, false, defamatory or libelous;

(d) not to submit content that uses insulting, threatening or provocative language or language that is hateful towards a certain group of people;

(e) not to submit content that incites hatred on the basis of race, political views, religion, gender, nationality or sexuality or other personal characteristics;

(f) not to submit content that contains indecent, obscene or pornographic material;

(g) not to use the website to conduct any illegal activity or solicit the performance of any illegal activity;

(h) not to submit content that infringes the intellectual property rights of others;

(i) not to submit multiple copies or versions of your content (spam);

(j) not to submit content that contains, or links to, any commercial advertising material or blatant self-promotion unless agreed to by the Barista Exchange Team in writing; on a case by case basis this may result in immediate expulsion from the website.

(k) not to submit content that invades the personal privacy of any other person or group;

(l) not to submit content that identifies any other person;

(m) that your content will be relevant to the themes currently being discussed on Barista Exchange

(n) Barista Exchange has the right to choose who advertises on the website, and has the right to offer exclusivity in advertising categories;

Moderation process

Unless you indicate otherwise in writing, all content you submit to the website is deemed to be non-confidential.

Content clearly marked in writing as confidential will not be displayed on the website.

Content will be considered for display on the website, and will be removed if not appropriate.

The moderator does not guarantee that any content you submit will be posted on the website. In deciding whether to display content on the website, or to remove content posted on the website, the moderator will consider compliance with the requirements of the acceptable use policy and these terms and conditions.

Moderation decisions

The moderators do not guarantee that your content will be posted on the website.

The moderators also do not guarantee that any content you contribute to the website will be protected against loss, misuse or alteration by third parties. In particular, the moderators do not guarantee that you will not suffer loss or diminution of any intellectual property rights you currently own or may be able to obtain in relation to content that you contribute to the website.

The moderators have the right to modify any content that you submit to the moderator, or to the website if non-appropriate.

The moderator has the right to take down any content displayed on the website at any time and for any reason.

The moderator has the right to ban any existing or new member at any time for any reason.

If you have any questions regarding content submission, moderation, or acceptable use you can email them to baristaexchange@gmail.com

The following Terms of Service apply to your use of this Network. You are solely responsible for your conduct and your content on the Network and compliance with these terms. By registering with us or using or browsing this Network, you acknowledge that you have read, understood, and agree to be bound by these terms. This Network is not directed to anyone younger than 16 and is offered only to users 16 years of age or older. Any person who provides their personal information through this Network represents that they are 16 years of age or older.

You agree that you will not post, email or make available any content or use this Network:

• In a manner that infringes, violates or misappropriates any third party's intellectual property rights or other proprietary rights or contractual rights;
• in a manner that contains software viruses or any other computer code, files or programs designed to interrupt, destroy or limit the functionality of any computer software or hardware or telecommunications equipment;
• to engage in spamming, "chain letters," "pyramid schemes", advertisement of illegal or controlled products or services, or other advertising or marketing activities that violate these Terms of Service, any applicable laws, regulations or generally-accepted advertising industry guidelines;
• in a manner that is misleading, deceptive or fraudulent or otherwise illegal or promotes illegal activities, including engaging in phishing or otherwise obtaining financial or other personal information in a misleading manner or for fraudulent or misleading purposes;
• in a manner that is libelous or defamatory, or in a way that is otherwise threatening, abusive, violent, harassing, malicious or harmful to any person or entity, or invasive of another's privacy;
• in a manner that is harmful to minors in any way;
• in a manner that is hateful or discriminatory based on race, color, sex, religion, nationality, ethnic or national origin, marital status, disability, sexual orientation or age or is otherwise objectionable;
• to impersonate any other person, or falsely state or otherwise misrepresent your affiliation with any person or entity, or to obtain access to this Network without authorization;
• to interfere or attempt to interfere with the proper working of this Network or prevent others from using this Network, or in a manner that disrupts the normal flow of dialogue with an excessive number of messages (flooding attack) to this Network, or that otherwise negatively affects other persons' ability to use this Network;
• to use any manual or automated means, including agents, robots, scripts, or spiders, to access or manage any user's account or to monitor or copy this Network or the content contained therein;
• to facilitate the unlawful distribution of copyrighted content;
• in a manner that includes personal or identifying information about another person without that person's explicit consent;
• in a manner that employs misleading email or IP addresses, or forged headers or otherwise manipulated identifiers in order to disguise the origin of content transmitted through this Network or to users; and
• in a manner that constitutes or contains any form of advertising or solicitation if emailed to users who have requested not to be contacted about other services, products or commercial interests.

Additionally, you agree not to:

• "Stalk" or otherwise harass anyone;
• Collect, use or disclose data, including personal information, about other users without their consent or for unlawful purposes or in violation of applicable law or regulations;
• Request, solicit or otherwise obtain access to usernames, passwords or other authentication credentials from any member of this Network or to proxy authentication credentials for any member of this Network for the purposes of automating logins to this Network;
• Post any content containing child pornography to this Network;
• Post any content that depicts or contains rape, extreme violence, murder, bestiality, incest, or other similar content;
• Post any content that constitutes pornography, contains nudity, or is adult in nature.
• Use automated means, including spiders, robots, crawlers, data mining tools, or the like to download data from this Network - except for Internet search engines (e.g. Google) and non-commercial public archives (e.g. archive.org) that comply with our robots.txt file, or "well-behaved" web services/RSS/Atom clients. We reserve the right to define what we mean by "well-behaved";
• Post irrelevant content, repeatedly post the same or similar content or otherwise impose an unreasonable or disproportionately large load on the Network's infrastructure;
• Attempt to gain unauthorized access to our computer systems or engage in any activity that disrupts, diminishes the quality of, interferes with the performance of, or impairs the functionality of, this Network;
• Use this Network as a generic file hosting service;
• Take any action that may undermine the feedback or ratings systems (such as displaying, importing or exporting feedback information off of this Network or for using it for purposes unrelated to this Network); and
• Develop, invoke, or utilize any code to disrupt, diminish the quality of, interfere with the performance of, or impair the functionality of this Network.

To provide notice of alleged copyright infringement on this Network, please see the DMCA Notification Guidelines.

You agree not to authorize or encourage any third party to use this Network to facilitate any of the foregoing prohibited conduct. You also agree that these Network Terms of Service inure to the benefit of our service providers (including our Network platform provider) and that they may take action (including the removal of your content and disabling of your account) in order to maintain compliance with these Network Terms of Service. Technology and hosting for aspects of this Network are provided by this Network's online service provider. However, the Network Creator of this Network controls the content, membership and policy of this Network, including those pages served by such service provider on behalf of this Network. Notwithstanding anything to the contrary, by participating on this Network you agree to indemnify and hold harmless such service provider on all matters related to your interaction with others using this Network and participation with this Network.