Overview

This document was written to establish an acceptable use and understanding per user of The Merchants' Guild policies and releases. All users must adhere to the policies herein and agree to these policies and terms of use. Continued use of The Merchants' Guild site is acceptance and agreeance to the policies listed herein.

Last Update: September 6, 2009
Most recent additions appear in red.
Policies which are no longer applicable are stricken-through. After a certain period of time (no less than a month), non-applicable policies may be removed entirely

• Overview
  
• Standard Release Policy
  
• Privacy Policy
  
• Content Policy
  
• Bidding Policy
  
• Listing Policy
  
• Comments and Forums Policy
  
• Account Responsibility Policy
  
• Communications Policy
  
• Contributions Policy
  
• Remedies
  

The Merchants' Guild and its administrators cannot be held liable for abuse of the system by any user or breach of contract between a buyer and seller. Abuse of system includes, but is not limited to, posting of illegal or copyrighted materials, posting of libellous or slanderous materials, and posting of other content which may lead to civil or criminal action. The seller assumes all responsibility for the posting of such materials, and indemnifies The Merchants' Guild (hereby termed "Host") from any legal action which results from the posting of same materials. Breach of contract between the buyer and seller occurs whenever one party fails to complete a transaction according to the contract invoked by posting and bidding of auctions in the system. While The Merchants' Guild administrators may decide to provide mediation in such situations, administrators shall not be obligated to do so.

The Host cannot be held liable or responsible for the loss/corruption of system data or system downtime. In such circumstances, the administrators will be obligated to assist a user in restoring data resulting from said loss, though cannot be held legally responsible for such incidents which may be beyond the Host's control. Wherever possible, accommodations may be made by the Host in order to satisfy the users in circumstances that may delay or decisively alter the outcome of an auction. The administrators may do this with or without the permission of the buyer or seller of an auction as long as the auction is still live. If an auction is closed, special accommodations may be made to open the auction again. It is advised that users keep personal records in order to preserve and verify any data they may deem vital or important in their use of Host's system.

It is the understanding of the Host that auctions are not legal in all areas, and that the legal age for contract may vary by State, Territory or Nation. Since the Host cannot verify all laws and policies concerning users' residence and legal obligations of contract, it is the individual user's responsibility to make themselves familiar with their local or governmental laws before entering a contractual sale or purchase on the Host's system. The Host cannot be held liable for the violation of law(s) where users enter contracts against the laws of their residence. This includes, but is not limited to, use of the Host's system by minors. Intentionally providing wrongful information to the Host is considered fraud, and will be reported to appropriate law enforcement agency(s) and/or the user's legal parents or guardians if such can be contacted; additionally fraud may result in legal prosecution by the Host in severe circumstances.

All users permit data entered into the system by themselves and others to be used for testing purposes and archived for posterity. Occasionally the system data is exported to a test environment in order to validate new software or verify the stability and integrity of the data. System data is also backed up to removable storage media on a regular, scheduled basis in order to preserve the data and provide a restore point should the live data be destroyed or corrupted. System data includes, but is not limited to, user-specific and account information, auction listings, bids placed, image files and HTML code.

This section was written with the intent of informing users of The Merchants' Guild system of policies and recommended procedures for the dissemination of user information. This section is of particular interest to all users and applies to the listing and use of personal information on The Merchants' Guild system.

Responsibility of The Merchants' Guild to protect user information:

Under no circumstances will users' private account information be granted to any users of the Host's system. This information includes users' addresses, phone numbers, passwords, payments and any other information that may be considered to be of a personal and private nature. Administrators have access to this data only by necessity; any administrator who is found to be abusing private user information will be punished in full accordance with the law and removed from the system immediately upon proof of such. The only circumstances which supercede this policy are court orders or other government seizures of our systems, be they authorized or unauthorized by local, State, or Federal law.

Users have access to other users' primary email address only in two situations. If a user has elected NOT to make their primary email address private upon account creation or in setting their preferences, their email address will openly appear to any user of the site wherever they are selling or bidding upon an auction. Otherwise, if the user has elected to make their primary email address private, only other registered users of the system may view the address by logging in with their username and password. The Host cannot be held liable for email addresses obtained by malicious users of the system or by users who have not elected to make their address private.

At this time, users may turn the privacy status of their primary email address on and off using the My Account - Prefs page under Notification Preferences.

Responsibility of Users to protect user information:

It is a responsibility of the users of Host's systems to keep confidential any information that may be considered of a private or personal nature as outlined above. Host cannot be held liable or responsible for any information freely given from their own account to other sources or users of the system. Obtaining account information about other users of the system for commercial or unacceptable use is prohibited by our Terms of Use agreement; users found to have done such will be immediately suspended from the system pending further investigation of the infraction.

Siphoning of user email addresses on Host's systems is strictly prohibited and may result in removal from the system up to blacklisting from our servers. There is no feasible reason to extract email addresses of other users through the web interface or other means, any attempt to do so will lead to applicable punishment and possible pursuit of legal action where necessary.

It is the stance of the Host that freedom of expression is defended by the United States Constitution, however, the Host also feels that gratuitous or explicit material of an offensive nature should be protected from public display or availability on the Host's site. Some content is illegal to transport across state lines or may be outlawed in state or local regions, including but not limited to certain types of weaponry. Users should be individually aware of the laws in their place of residence before entering a contractual situation to sell or purchase items which may be considered illegal to own or transport. The Host cannot be held legally responsible for the seizure of such materials or any civil or criminal action that may result from the possession or transport of such materials.

Public Content

Allowable Content

The Merchants' Guild is a public auction site designed specifically for items related to historical re-enactment, Renaissance Faires, and fantasy LARP based in medieval settings. The allowable period time frame for items ranges from the 5th century to the 17th century, encompassing the Middle Ages, Dark Ages, and Renaissance periods. In order to maintain the site's focus, the Host requires that all auctions center around this time frame. Items do not have to be period-authentic; however they must be clearly designed for a medieval or Renaissance setting. Fantasy items are allowable as long as they meet the time period requirements. Items referring to or designed to play fantasy races (e.g. elves, fairies, dwarves, etc.) are allowed within reason. Steampunk is considered acceptable as long as it is designed for a medieval fantasy setting (for example, gnomish mechanically engineered items). Auctions may be reviewed on an individual basis by the administrators, and any auctions that are deemed outside of the site's theme may be depublicized or removed at the admin's discretion.

Offensive Content

Some content is considered by the Host to be inappropriate for public display on the system. Such content includes, but is not limited to, items of a blatantly sexual nature, religiously offensive materials and racially offensive materials. Such content may be removed or depublicized from the system by administrators with or without prior notice to the users. Other offensive or potentially offensive content may be reviewed by administrators as being inappropriate for public display or sale on Host's system at their own discretion.

Some content, while not violating any policies or laws, may be considered offensive by users of the Host's system. The Host cannot be held responsible for any personally offensive materials posted, but shall hear complaints and review them for action by administrator discretion. Users with auctions found to be in violation of this policy will be contacted and asked to make all future auctions of a similar type private in nature; additionally an administrator may move the currently running auction(s) to private status without prior notice or approval from the user in question. Repeated violations of this policy may lead to account suspension or removal.

Avatar Content

No mature content may be displayed in Avatar images as these images may be used on pages which are designed to contain only non-adult content. Site users who wish to use an Avatar should create an 80x80 GIF or JPG thumbnail that does NOT contain any mature material. Using bars or pixellation to "cover" areas of mature content are not considered acceptable.

Any images found in violation of this policy will be removed until such time as the user updates the URL to a more appropriate image. If a user is found in repeated violation of this policy, by discretion of admins, they will receive a warning in email and may eventually be suspended for abuse of this policy. Users are encouraged to report violations of this policy if they should find any mature material in a user's Avatar.

Multi-User / Multi-Artist / Collaboration Auctions

Due to the complex nature of such auctions and the potential for issues, "Multi-Artist" style auctions which sell commissions or goods by multiple people under one account are prohibited. If multiple sellers wish to contribute to a larger project, they are each individually required to create their own auctions for those purposes and be involved in the normal bidding and feedback system on a per-item or per-package basis. The only exception to this policy is when multiple artists or creators collaborate on a single final deliverable work to the winning bidder. This policy is subject to the interpretation of the admin team and they reserve the right to take any action deemed necessary in order to prevent such auctions from being posted or remove said auctions, but typically the admin team will be compelled to work with users in order to help facilitate this policy as smoothly as possible.

Acceptable Use of Image Hosting

The Merchants' Guild offers free image hosting for users of this site for use in The Merchants' Guild auctions only, and as such, displaying The Merchants' Guild-hosted images on other websites is not permitted. The exception to this policy is thumbnail images, which may be displayed in conjunction with the "My Auctions" Herald feature to promote The Merchants' Guild auctions on remote sites. Any image which is found to be in direct violation of this policy may result in a warning and be removed at the admin's discretion. Repeated violations of this policy may lead to account suspension or removal.

Copyright and Trademark

All users indemnify the Host of any charges, civil or criminal, for their misuse of copyrighted or trademarked property on the system. It is also the users' responsibility to know if materials may violate these laws, and use them according to the legal guidelines established by the US Patent and Trademark Office at www.uspto.gov. Users who are found to be in violation of such laws will be personally liable for all damages and court fees incurred from prosecution resulting in said violation, be they charged upon the Host or the user in question. On the request of a registered Copyright or Trademark holder, or the request of a Court Order, auctions may be removed from the system without warning if there is a possible infringement. Administrators also reserve the right to proactively strike auctions which may be in violation of US Copyright and Trademark laws.

Plagiarism

The Merchants' Guild will not tolerate works that appear, or are otherwise proven, to be plagiarised. Items posted that fall under this category will be dealt with as any other possible copyright concern. The Merchants' Guild administrators must be made aware of a possible situation that falls under this policy before it can be dealt with. Bidders will be notified of the issue and asked to send in email asking to have their bids stricken in accordance with the Bidding Policies concerning administrator removal of bids. Once all bids have been removed, the auction will be stricken from the system. The offensive seller will then be given a warning, and possibly suspended up to removal of their account for violations of this policy. Second offenses of violation of this policy will result in removal of the offender's account from the system.

This section was written with the intent of informing bidders who use The Merchants' Guild system of policies and recommended procedures for the auction bidding process. This section of the Terms of Use is of particular interest to bidders and applies to the bidding and purchase of auctions on the The Merchants' Guild system.

Contractual Obligation

Placing bids

When a bidder places a bid on an auction, they are entering into a contractual agreement with the seller of the item(s) to purchase said item(s). Bids placed by the proxy bidding system are considered to be requested and authorized by the original bidder and continue to hold the binding contract for sale should the bidder win the auction. All bids are binding, even if outbid, until the transaction of the highest legitimate bidder is completed with the seller. In the case that the highest bid is considered fraudulent or the high bidder defaults on their bid, the seller will have the option of either selling to the next highest bidder, or cancelling the auction. Auctions which close with a bid that is below the Reserve Price of an auction are the only exception to this policy, in which case neither the seller nor the bidder are obligated to complete the transaction normally.

Failure to meet the required obligation of purchase with the seller of an auction may result in Negative Feedback from the seller and possible administrator action up to suspension from the system. Multiple or extreme offenses of this policy may result in immediate removal of the offensive party from the system. In the event that a conflict arises between the seller and high bidder(s) of a closed auction, the administrators will be obligated but not required to assist in mediation of the conflict.

Important Note About Proxy Bidding: The The Merchants' Guild bidding system considers subsequent bids by the same user to be bids against one's self! If you do not wish to raise the bid value on an auction, please only place ONE BID and wait for auction close or for another user to outbid you. In the future we may implement a system to revise a proxy bid price, but for the time being it is very important to note this mechanic in the system when considering and placing bids.

Reserve Price and Bidding

Some auctions may be listed with a Reserve Price which allows a seller to set a price at which bids become binding. If a bid does NOT meet the Reserve Price on an auction, then the highest bid is not considered legally binding. Should an auction close with a high bidder but the Reserve Price is not met, the seller and bidder are entitled but not obligated to come to an agreement outside of Host's site to complete the sale. Otherwise the seller is free to relist the item for sale or choose not to sell it at all.

Requested Removal of Bids

Under normal circumstances, users will not be permitted to retract bids at this time. However, under extenuating circumstances (such as an auction which violates the Copyright or Plagiarism policies) users may be permitted to rescind their bids so that the auction can be removed in compliance with the Posting Policies. In these situations users will normally be informed of the ability to remove their bids, typically by sending an email confirmation of their desire to do so. Bids may also be removed on the request of the bidder who placed the bid via email to a The Merchants' Guild administrator so long as the seller of the item(s) the bid(s) were placed on agrees to allow it. This policy remains in place in order to validate and support the fact that placing a bid is a legal contract between the seller and high bidder.

Pleading of Bids

As an accomodation to bidders who have realized they may have overbid their budget on an auction, a system of 'Bid Pleading' may be enacted by administrators which allows users to cut a previously placed proxy level down to the current bid level. In addition to this, a pleaded bid may be overbid by another user at the current bid level and/or advertised as a pleaded bid status concerning the auction itself. This system of pleading bids was added as a compromise to not allowing users to directly remove their bids on an auction, but still attempt to be outbid with the assistance or interest of other users who will take on their legal obligation at the same level.

Shill Bidding and Bid Shielding

As defined by the US Federal Trade Commission on their website: "shill bidding" [is] when fraudulent sellers or their partners, known as "shills", bid on sellers' items to drive up the price, and "bid shielding" [is] when fraudulent buyers submit very high bids to discourage other bidders from competing for the same item, then retract their bids so that people they know can get the item at a lower price.

It should be noted also that eBay, another prominent auction site, has a custom definition for shill bidding, as do many other online auction systems. For the purposes of The Merchants' Guild, we adhere to the FTC's definition as stated above. The Merchants' Guild does not tolerate shill bidding but it must be very evident through means of logs or public testimony that shill bidding has occurred by definition, and the motives and evidence of fraudulent activity must be clear for The Merchants' Guild staff to take action regarding these actions. By definition, bid shielding is not possible on The Merchants' Guild due to the fact that bidders cannot retract bids after they have been placed and pleading bids will not lower the bid price level for an auction.

In the event of suspected fraudulent bidding activity or valid accusation of such, the user in question may have their account temporarily suspended while the investigation is performed. Should a user, upon thorough investigation, be found to have been involved in a shill bidding incident their account will be permanently disabled and any future attempts of the user to establish an account on the system will be denied. Furthermore, this activity may be reported to appropriate law enforcement agencies for possible litigation.

False Accounts

Any account created using invalid information (legal name, address, phone number, etc.) is considered a "false account". False accounts are strictly prohibited and are subject to immediate suspension. Suspended false accounts may only be restored once valid contact information is provided and verified by an administrator.

If bids on an auction are placed by a false account, the bids are considered fraudulent and are subject to removal by an administrator without notice. When fraudulent bids are removed from an auction, the bidding history will be corrected in the auction system, and the max bid will be reverted to the last legitimate bid placed against another legitimate bid. Any legitimate bid placed against another legitimate bid, whether or not fraudulent bidding has affected the amount, is considered legal and binding under the standard bidding terms. Any fraudulent bids below the max bid will be left in the bidding history to illustrate the progression of bids, but are still considered fraudulent. If a false account is restored, their prior bids will not be restored, and will have to be re-placed manually by the bidder.

This section was written with the intent of informing sellers who use The Merchants' Guild system of policies and recommended procedures for the auction listing process. This section is of particular interest to sellers and applies to the listing and sale of auctions on The Merchants' Guild system.

Contractual Obligation

Listing Auctions

By listing a new auction on The Merchants' Guild, the seller is opening the ability to form a legal contract between the seller and any user who places bids on the seller's auction. When a bid is placed on that auction, the bidder has entered a contractual agreement with the seller to purchase the item(s) at the bid level which is locked in at the closing of the auction. The contract is reciprocal in that when the seller places item(s) up for bidding, the seller is obligated to sell the item to the final high bidder(s). All bids are binding, even if outbid, until the transaction of the highest legitimate bidder is completed with the seller. In the case that the highest bid is considered fraudulent or the high bidder defaults on their bid, the seller has the option of either selling to the next highest bidder, or cancelling the auction.

Failure to comply with this contract may result in negative feedback left by the bidder(s), and possible suspension of the seller's account. Multiple offenses of this policy may result in a user's account being removed from the system and all access revoked at administrator discretion. Auctions which close with a bid below the Reserve Price of the auction are the only exception to this policy, in which case neither the seller nor high bidder(s) are obligated to complete the transaction normally.

Removal of Auctions

Sellers may remove auctions by closing them when there are no bids placed on the auctions in question. If there are bids placed, all bids must be retracted with the permission of the individual bidders so that the auction is once again at a state of no current, live bids in effect. This is normally only permitted in extrenuous circumstances, however. For details on policies concerning the removal of bids, see the Bidding Policies section.

Use of Hot Item and Art Show Images

We ask that all users who make use of these extended features in their auctions please keep the images to the appropriate sizes for the type of image add-on used. It is fairly quick and easy to crop down and/or resize an image to fit the requested dimensions. These thumbnail images should be small and load fast, anything over 20k is completely unacceptable for the purposes of these items. This policy is established in order to improve the speed and professional look and feel of The Merchants' Guild system. If you require any assistance in creating thumbnails from larger images, please feel free to contact The Merchants' Guild administration for details. Here are the appropriate image sizes for each image feature offered on The Merchants' Guild system:

This section was written with the intent of informing users who use The Merchants' Guild system of policies and recommended procedures for the comments and forums system. This section is of particular interest to any user who makes use of the comments or forums features on The Merchants' Guild system.

Message Content

We ask that users think carefully about their message before making a post to The Merchants' Guild Message Boards. Please use a fair amount of decorum whenever possible in your messages, if you think it might not be a good thing to say then it would be best to follow your instinct and not write it. We encourage users to deal with personal issues via email only and not to bring any personal facts which may be damaging or untrue to light on our messaging system. Heated arguments or out of control emotional rampages will not be tolerated on the message boards. The rough usage of the Message Board system is for The Merchants' Guild business and that of the re-enactment and LARP communities in general. Please keep all posts related to one of these two general guidelines. We also ask that you make every attempt to post messages in the appropriate forum, and make note that replies whose subjects or points change can be cross-posted to a new forum without interrupting the message thread.

While mature-themed conversation and discussions are permitted in our message boards, we require all such messages to include the word "NSFW" in the subject of the message. This will help prevent users who do not wish to view such material from accidentally loading information or conversations that may offend them. Conversation and discussion of an explicitly sexual nature are not allowed, and messages with sexual content are subject to removal by the admins.

Message Board Remedies

Administrators reserve all rights to effect the message boards and their contents, with or without notifying users of any changes made. This includes removing offensive messages from the boards, modifying the subject lines, changing the forum a message belongs to, and banning users from making further posts to the message boards. Administrators may determine the need for such changes at their own discretion. Under no circumstances should an administrator alter the text contained in a message, however. These policies apply to all message boards hosted by The Merchants' Guild system.

It is the responsibility of users of Host's systems to maintain their account information and update it any time a change in their information occurs. Administrators of Host's systems may use this contact information to contact or verify a user's identity and the correctness of the data at any time, without warning, though administrators will be obligated to give fair warning and only attempt making contact at reasonable times where possible. Administrators reserve the right to temporarily suspend any account which appears to have invalid or inaccurate information, until such time as the owner of the account can be contacted and identified and the information either verified or updated to be in order and accurate.

Creating accounts for the sole purpose of obtaining information about other users is considered to be abuse and is not permissible. Creating new accounts or using alternate accounts in order to circumvent the suspension of previously existing accounts, or to circumvent blacklists, bans or blocks by other users, is also considered to be abuse and is not permissible. Violations of these policies will likely result in a temporary suspension of account privileges; repeated violations will result in banishment and blacklisting from the Host's systems at a higher level on a permanent basis.

Users are welcome to create secondary or alternate accounts for the purposes of separating different types of sales, or for the purposes of separating business and personal accounts. In these situations, Host asks that users send a brief email to the administrators explaining the reasons for alternate accounts for their records and to prevent confusion and administrative action at a later time. Business accounts should be registered as a business with a business address, and users making use of business accounts should always act professionally from the standpoint of the business itself when engaging other users on the site and in conducting their business on the site.

In communicating with Host and Host's administrators, we ask that you use a civil tone and clear language. Insults, emotional outbursts and attacks on Host's systems or administrators via email or any other method of communications will not be tolerated and are likely to be removed from Host's systems without notice. Legal threats will not be entertained in the least; at the point where a communication begins discussing prosecution or impending legal action, we will no longer respond directly to your communications but will only communicate either through our attorney or through yours. Furthermore if Host intends to pursue legal action, there will be no threats from Host or its administrators, you will receive communications directly from Host's legal counsel.

Host and its administrators shall never become involved in unsolicited email communications, be they of commercial or non-commercial nature. Host and administrators may be clearly identified as originating from the domain merchants-guild.com or any DNS mapped IP addresses of that domain. If you believe you have received unsolicited email from Host or Host's administrators, we ask that you Contact Us immediately and include as much detail as possible, and especially to include full email headers from the message in question. At the request of any user, Host will remove the ability to send email to any address which they can verify they control, which may involve permanently closing any user accounts associated with that address.

The Host and its administrators may send email in an automated fashion at times, and you may occasionally receive email which you do not desire. Host cannot be held liable nor charged with unsolicited commercial email violations as long as no notice to stop sending mail has been issued from the address in question and as long as a user possesses active accounts on the system using that address. Creation of new accounts or activation of existing accounts using an address that has previously requested cessation of email communications is considered to be an act of waiving all prior requests of cessation.

All users of the Host's system are required to abide by the policies set herein. Failure to abide by these policies may result in suspension or expulsion from the Host's system. It is the user's understanding that access and accounts are granted to users by the right of the Host, and may also be altered by the Host without warning. Users who are removed from the Host's system may be declined future access without reason; any users found to be fraudulently creating new accounts with the host system may be prosecuted by law or reported to appropriate law enforcement agency(s). Suspended users carry no rights or claims to the Host system. The bids or auctions of suspended users may be altered by the administrators at their discretion. The Host reserves all rights to the systems and data contained on Host's systems. Please review the Privacy Policy for further details on dissemination of personal data.

Policy Updates

The administrators reserve the right to update these policies, including all extended policies listed above, at will and without notice. The Host is obligated but not required to inform users of changes in this policy when such changes occur. Wherever possible, new policies will not be applied ex post facto to existing circumstances on Host's system, but may be applied without notice when necessary.