MMA Community Terms of Service

Purpose:
MMA-COM (aka MMA Community) is a community site built for fans and fighters involved in the sport of mixed martial arts. It is a way for people sharing the interest in MMA to interact with each other, share ideas, and share their experiences.

General idea:
MMA-COM is a tool to help the MMA fighters and fans. MMA-COM is free for all to use. Some may choose to use it as a training diary. Some may choose to use it to review video tapes that they have seen. Some may even use it to find fighters for their events. Please, do not abuse it. This is not a site for you to host your entire picture library. It is not a site for you to bash fighters and other fans. It is a not a site for you to engage in illegal activities.

Support:
This site is designed, programmed, and supported by jhedges. Send any bug reports or technical support questions to him. Be sure you have read the user guide before sending your support questions. If your question is addressed in the guide and you haven't read it, you either won't get a response, or you will be referred to read the guide. Please check jhedges's page for updates and bug fixes involving the functionality of the site.

Terms:
As a member of this site, you must abide by the following governing terms. If you have any issues with these terms, you are free to contact jhedges or simply leave.

• This site is intended to be a community of friends. Activity that damages the community is not acceptable -- this includes, but is not limited to, the malicious slandering of other members or support of organizations opposed to MMA in general.
• You may not post hostile messages in other peoples forums, or send hostile unsolicited instant messages via MMA-COM. If you have a dispute, keep it off this site. That is, if you object to what someone writes on their page, you can respond civily (ie. "I disagree with you because..." followed by a logical argument), but you may not respond with insults that contribute nothing to the debate (ie. "You're an idiot"). In addition, you can't go to someone's page and say "your tattoos suck" or "you're so fat" or whatever other lame thing is running through your head. If you think the conversation is going to turn into a fight, just don't have it -- it's not worth it.
• You agree not to post unsolicited ads for contests, businesses, or anything else in other people's forums or via instant messages where you are not a regular unless the forum is specifically related to your posting (ie. NO SPAMMING!).
• You agree not to post hatespeech (racial, gender, sexuality, etc.) on your page. This includes use of terms like "gay" or "fag" or "retard" in a derogatory manner, even in jest. This rule is very strict. First instance results in a warning, second violation results in removal.
• You may not post disruptive HTML / Javascript in other's chat rooms.
• You can use Javascript, etc. on your page, but overly obnoxious Javascript that disrupts browsers, etc. is not OK.
• You agree not to ridicule other members. That is, it's not OK to send a person a message along the lines of "you suck" or writing on your page about it. Are you here to have a positive experience, or are you here to fight -- it is your choice after all. That said, if you choose to damage someone else's experience here, we may just choose not to have you here.
• You may not edit your page and add/delete new entries so as to remain at the top of the recently updated list unless you're really making updates. If you are testing HTML or layout, just edit entries instead of adding and deleting them.
• If you use your page to just complain about how much you hate MMA-COM and/or its members or policies, and/or how you're deleting your page, your bluff will probably be called. No one forces you to stay. If you don't like it here, leave. If you do, great, stay and have fun. If you don't like the way things are run here, go out and do it better. That's why this site exists, and if you're right in your beliefs, your site will be a success.
• Except when noted, the above are usually handled with a warning and temporary suspension of access to all or parts of MMA-COM. In more extreme cases or in cases where a warning is not relevant, account removal may be immediate.

Cost:

• As of now, MMA-COM is free to use for all. However, MMA-COM reserves the right to change pricing and/or access structure if our hosting costs change dramatically.
• If you wish to help, we will gladly accept your donations via paypal. Just send funds to jhedges@ufighting.com.
• Under no circumstances may you use MMA-COM to host images for another site (such as a livejournal or the Underground). Pay for your own bandwidth!
• Some bonus features not related to the basic functionality of MMA-COM may not be available to all users.
• Some features not related to the community nature of MMA-COM such as picture galleries may have daily limits set on them to ensure that one user doesn't consume far more resources than the average user.

Avatars and Photos:

• The uploading of photos that are adult or pornographic in nature is strictly prohibited. Furthermore, the use of one of these photos as your avatar will result in an immediate removal of the account from the site.
• Your avatar should represent you or your personality. Misleading avatars used to "get people to click" are strongly discouraged as they are both contrary to the community purpose of the site, and artifically inflate the site's bandwidth (thereby increasting the cost of the site). An example of a good avatar is a personal picture of yourself or a graphic of a piece of artwork you used. An example of a bad avatar is stealing someone else's photo from a fight and using it to generate more hits.
• Pages that ignore the above will simply be taken out of main-page rotation.

Identity:

• You may only have one account at a time. If you want to get a new account (for example, to get a new name), you must delete your old account first.
• Usernames are permanent, so when you pick it, make sure it's really the one you want.
• Accounts are for one person only, except by special permission. First violation gets a warning, second violation results in the deletion of the account.
• Passwords may not be shared, and under no circumstances may you use your MMA-COM access to let non-members use or abuse the site. This includes sending non-members, especially blocked members, copies of people's MMA-COM pages. Accounts violating this rule may be removed without notice.
• Your page must be about you (as in the "real" you). You may not maintain a "fake" identity. First violation results in a warning and a potential locking of the account. Subsequent refusal to comply to this rule reults in account removal.
• You may not impersonate others, nor may you run a blank page (you have a two week grace period to learn the ropes and add content). Accounts violating this rule are removed without notice.
• MMA-COM is for non-commercial use only. Feel free to promote your business on your page, but the site must be owned by a person, and it's primary purpose should not be the promotion of your business. If you have any questions on this, please do ask first. Accounts in violation may be removed without warning.

Legal Issues:

• You agree to accept full legal responsibility for anything you post on your own page and release BME et al. from any damages resulting from use or misuse of your page.
• You agree not to post images you do not have the legal right to (ie. you must be the photogapher or creator of any image you post). If you are not sure if you can legally use an image, DON'T. Pages which violate other's copyright will be removed without notice, and your information may be turned over to the legal copyright holder should they decide to prosecute you. If you are unsure what this means, please click here for more (easy to read) information on copyright law. First violation results in a warning and the removal of the image, second violation results in account deletion.
• You may not use your site as a portal to porn / warez / mp3s / passwordz sites. Generally this means immediate removal.

Privacy:

• Instant Messages are private, but recent IM logs may be examined in cases of dispute or other TOS violations.
• MMA-COM may keep detailed logs of ALL activities on this site.
• MMA-COM will not release these details to either the public or other companies unless legally required to do so.
• MMA-COM may use this information to improve your experience at MMA-COM or UFighting.
• You agree not to hack or compromise the security or functionality of the site in any way and to report any vulnerabilities you discover. Any user doing this will be removed immediately.
• While we do our best to protect the site's security, it could in theory get hacked and move these details out of our control.

Miscellaneous:

• This site is for friends of MMA. This site is supported by UFighting and is meant to act as a service to its readers and supporters. Using this site in an attempt to damage MMA in any way will not be tolerated.
• You may not add banner ads linking to paid/commercial services to your site, nor will you use it to drive traffic to sites opposed to MMA.
• While you can link to other sites, portal pages (pages that just say "click here to go to my 'real' diary") will be removed.
• You agree not to use auto-refreshers or any other tools or techniques to bypass the normal functioning of the MMA-COM system.