Changes to the Terms of Service

We have made wide-sweeping changes of the Terms of Service, to the point that you may have been asked to re-accept the new Terms of Service when coming onto the site today. The majority of these changes have been to clarify certain things, to change some of the language to be less vague or fixed nonsensical, grammatically incorrect sentences. But there have been a number of substantive changes as well that take effect as of today. In an effort to be transparent about the changes that have taken place; I will lay down what they are here and explain about why these changes have been made. 

If something you posted in the past is in violation of the Terms of Service in the present; you will not be punished for it. The reason being is that we do not retroactively punish people for something that does become a rule that wasn’t when it was posted. We find this expressly unfair and instead will hide it, let the person who posted it know what’s happened and then ask if they’d like us to delete it, or send it back to them. 

These changes to the Terms of Service are some of the biggest since the start of my Administration back in 2011, over a decade ago. For a start, officially, sub-sections are now no longer going to be called "Paragraphs", they're sub-sections. Here are the full list of changes:

• Sections with Minimal Changes
• Sections with Substantial Changes
  • Section 10 - Harassment
  • Section 12 - Member Conduct
  • Section 14 - Spam
  • Section 18 - Gallery and Media Uploaded or Posted to EcchiDreams
• NCO (No Contact Orders)

Sections with Minimal Changes

There has been minimal changes here to fix the grammar and spelling across the entire Terms of Service, the following contain minimal changes, such as what has already been discussed and more, if there is no additional information, then it was just a spelling/grammar thing:

• Section 1 - Acceptance of Terms
  • Sub-Section 1 - Disclaimer
• Section 2 - Content Notice
• Section 3 - Registration Requirements, which also contains updates to the ways in which we allow registrations via Single Sign On options. We’ve dropped Facebook and Twitter, kept Google and added Steam.
  • Sub-Section 1 - Date of Birth
  • Sub-Section 2 - Email Address, reaffirmed that we don’t accept Disposable Emails anymore.
  • Sub-Section 3 - Display Name, we have also added “impersonating staff to socially engineer or phish other Dreamers will result in a ban.”
• Section 4 - Privacy and Disclosure of Information
• Section 7 - Premium Membership. Clarifications have been made that basically reaffirms that even premium members are bound by the Terms of Service. 
• Section 9 - Duplicate Accounting. Makes it clear that we have an automatic system in place.
• Section 11 - Bugs and Exploits of the Fortums and its Applications, literally had the same section repeated directly under it. We decided two paragraphs that say the exact thing is perhaps a bit much and have just decided to keep one paragraph. 
• Section 13 - Plagiarism
• Section 17 - EcchiDreams Roleplay
  • Sub-Section 1 - Club Roleplays
  • Sub-Section 2 - Private Roleplays
  • Sub-Section 3 - Roleplayer Preferences
• Section 19 - Commissions on Art, has been also strengthened and clarified. 
• Section 20 - Other
  • Sub-Section 1 - EcchiCredits
  • Sub-Section 3 - Unverified and Inactive Accounts
• Section 21 - Account Termination, clarifications done across the board.
• Section 22 Sub-Section 1 - Infraction Appeals

Sections with Substantial Changes

These are the following sections of the Terms of Service that contain a lot of changes, or changes that need to be explained in further detail. 

Section 10 - Harassment

Harassment is one of our more serious rules in the Terms of Service. Despite the fact that it is extremely rare for someone to be reported for harassment, when it does happen the majority of the reports are generally unfounded or don’t even come anywhere near close to our definition of harassment. Balancing this section of the Terms of Service was extremely important from the beginning, and we have received strong criticism for this in the past. I am personally not prepared to cede any ground, however. It is important that we continue striking a balance between protecting Dreamers from genuine harassment and protecting Dreamers from false accusations. To be clear here; I am not saying that harassment is acceptable, of course it isn’t.

To this end we’ve added the word “Deliberately” to the definition, which was implied from the beginning, but it is now stated categorically. We’ve also fundamentally re-written the section for clarification, and injected a clause in the evidence policy that specifies what we’ve strengthened in Section 12, spoken about below. We have reaffirmed that we will not treat evidence as evidence if we can’t verify that it’s evidence to begin with. This is not to make the bar of what is and isn’t harassment higher, but so we can have actual verifiable proof in our hands.

We have also introduced a new paragraph to Section 10 (Sub-Section 5) which should protect both parties in a case as well. It’s called NCO, or “No Contact Order” which will be spoken about in the next part. 

Section 12 - Member Conduct

We have strengthened this section to include the following line: 

Quote

Similarly; if you get into contact with a user away from EcchiDreams, it is at your own risk. We are not responsible for enforcing our Terms of Service outside of EcchiDreams or the EcchiDreams Server on Discord, it is simply outside of our jurisdiction.

The reason we’ve added this there is to emphasise the point, really. We’ve had a few reports over the years where people have added other people to Discord and the like, where these conversations have devolved into something nasty that would most certainly break Terms of Service here. These people would report these conversations that happened outside of EcchiDreams to us, either to let us know it happened, or to ask for them to be banned. We obviously can’t do that, so this reaffirms that, and basically says “We don’t recommend it, but if you do it, it’s at your own risk, not ours.” Kind of thing.

We have also removed “EcchiChat” references as this is no longer a service or feature we provide. 

Section 14 - Spam

Whilst the changes here have been minimal, the kind of changes that have happened here are substantial. Under the old Terms of Service posting a link to your F-List preferences which to be fair, is better than what we have, was prohibited, and landed people in hot water. Instead, now, context matters. This has been added:

Quote

Sites that directly compete against EcchiDreams in the context of trying to relocate Dreamers to that competitor's website or to do the roleplaying solely in that location.

We’ve changed it so that the reason this rule was put in can still be protected, but those that aren’t doing that, will also be protected. This rule has been around since the beginning, and I know why it exists, and we have had people who have come to EcchiDreams, give out their link to roleplay somewhere else and never come back to the site, effectively using this site to advertise on. To that end this has been added: 

Quote

Anyone who registers and immediately violates this section risks being marked as a spammer, which will be handled under the relevant clauses under Section 4. 

So this kind of behaviour (Register and immediately post something like “Hey! Come and roleplay with me here [Link to Another Site or Discord]”) will be treated as spam in the future. We’re all up for giving a little leniency, to give an inch as it were, we’d ask that this doesn’t get abused. 

To be clear. If you want to include your F-List preferences in your preferences here on EcchiDreams to show a better list, you can. What isn’t okay, is coming here solely to find roleplayers to roleplay with on other platforms. Find them on that platform, this isn’t the place for it.

Section 18 - Gallery and Media Uploaded or Posted to EcchiDreams

For many of you, Section 18 of the Terms of Service is the absolute bane of your existence, and it rightfully has this reputation. But the problem is that we have to obey the law, and this, coupled with genuine enforcement of it, keeps us within the confines of the law where the servers are located. It is a legal issue, not an us being anal - issue.

We’ve reaffirmed what the purpose of the gallery (https://ecchidreams.com/gallery) is for, as well as enshrined into the Terms of Service that GIFs are not allowed within that section of the site and this may apply to clubs later down the line. We have also defined what we consider to be “Nudity”, “Minors” and “Sexual Situations” for clarity purposes. 

Definitions:

• Nudity: Not wearing clothing, or sensitive areas (female nipples and/or male or female genitalia) being visible through or around any clothing being worn. 
• Sexual Situation: A character is considered as being in a "sexual situation" if they are clearly having sexual intercourse or are exposed to it in some way either directly or indirectly, or that there is some kind of sexual activity being performed.
• A Minor: Someone who is under 18 years of age (IE; is not an adult).
  • Please keep in mind that a 1000 year-old woman who looks like a child still appears to depict a minor and a character who is canonically underage but is "aged up" in the image is still treated as a minor, neither of which are permissible under the Terms of Service.
  • This would mean that you also can’t use a picture that is of a sexual nature, or has any nudity in it for a character who is under the age of 18, as per your character profile. 

NCO (No Contact Orders)

An NCO, or “No Contact Order” is a new part of our suite of tools to primarily help people who might be starting to receive harassment or are receiving harassment but are currently being “Block Shielded” which is blocking the user and then harassing them from behind the block. 

This is still a new thing, and I have no doubt that the bugs of it aren't completely ironed out, but it is something we’re committed to work on as hard as we can to make it work. 

An NCO is a directive to not contact or communicate with another Dreamer on the site that can only be issued and enforced by a member of staff, under specific circumstances. These are typically between two parties (Two people) and would require the consent of at least one of the people involved. However, once a ‘No Contact’ issue is ordered it applies to both parties equally. An NCO cannot be issued towards a member of Staff, as there are other internal policies that deal with exactly this, not that I actually anticipate that ever happening. They also cannot be issued towards someone of whom you’ve never had any communication, or had any communication with recently (Within a month), just because “You don’t like them”. 

If you feel “extremely uncomfortable” to the point that you’re feeling “distressed” by another Dreamer, which you have already told to cease contacting you, you can talk to a member of staff or file a report (Which needs to follow the evidence policy, under Section 10). After this point, an NCO could be issued, to both parties requiring only the consent of one party to issue that NCO. 

An NCO issued by a member of staff has the same power as a typical Section 10 in which further contact will be treated as a Section 10 Violation. To prevent ‘shield-bullying’ and ‘entrapment’ the person requesting the NCO is also bound by the very same NCO to not contact the accused. It is generally recommended to just completely avoid each other, entirely, and make use of the blocking/ignore features on the site in addition to it.

So how does this work? 

Well let's say “Dreamer A” is receiving undue messages from “Dreamer B”. Dreamer B has been asked once already by Dreamer A to stop messaging them, but Dreamer B is continuing, but the stuff they’re saying is disturbing Dreamer A causing great anxiety or distress. Or Dreamer A has been blocked by Dreamer B and Dreamer B is abusing the block/ignore system and are harassing them from behind the block, (Block Shielding*) so that Dreamer A can’t ask them to stop and thus they’re unable to proceed with the route of reporting a Section 10 violation. 

Dreamer A can report this as harassment and staff will contact them to talk about implementing an NCO. If agreed; the NCO will be applied, and both parties will be messaged separately about this. 

If Dreamer B continues immediately, another report can be filed and they will be suspended for a week. If they sign up for another account to continue the harassment, they will have bigger problems to worry about. If they continue the harassment after the suspension, another report can be sent off and this time the ban will be permanent. 

If there is a long length of time between the communication, for example; the NCO is applied today, and six months time, or a years time, that person contacts Dreamer A again, Dreamer A just sends a report to us, and we’ll remind them that they have an active NCO between the two parties. If the contact doesn’t stop, we will resume down the path of the previous paragraph.

If however Dreamer A starts harassing Dreamer B, they will find themselves on that path as well. Same if they try to goad Dreamer B into violating the NCO. 

It’s not a perfect system, no system is. But under the limitations of the Block/Ignore system and the restrictions of what Section 10 actually is; this is the best we can think of. Currently there is only one NCO that is active right now. Both parties are bound by this ‘contract’ if you will, to not contact each other. 

Now someone might ask; “What if Dreamer B comments on something posted by Dreamer A? Does that violate the No Contact Order?” And the short answer is; “It depends.” For example; 

Let's say Dreamer A puts up a topic, “Which is your favourite Pokémon?” and Dreamer B replies to it like everyone else does, with “Magikarp because he’s so cute and …” then this isn’t a violation of the NCO, nor is it even harassment, it’s someone, a “Dreamer of the Public” if you will who is replying to a public topic. However… If they say “Magikarp because like you Dreamer A, it’s completely useless” then this would be a violation of the NCO as that is contact with the Dreamer. 

* Block Shielding is defined as; using the ignore system to prevent another Dreamer from sending you an EcchiText. This is done by sending them an EcchiText then blocking them via the Ignore system, so that they can’t reply then removing the block to send them an EcchiText before reblocking them again, usually by having the ignore interface open in another tab that can allow for quick selection. This would prevent the person receiving it from telling them to stop contacting them, or make it extremely difficult to do so. This is known as blockshielding, and yes, this has actually happened. I’m not sure if this is an EcchiDreams unique phenomenon or if it's something that happens elsewhere.

Image Source: ハンカチ (Handkerchief)

I needed a relatively suitable image for this article and originally looked at stock images, but decided - nah. I found this image on Pixiv and at first I thought it was a photo of a real library. But upon closer look - I don't think it is. The level of detail, the lighting and reflections is absolutely stunning! I think it might be a 3D Render, or some kind of hybrid, I don't actually know. It is exceptionally well done and looking at their other artwork, I highly recommend giving them a look and a follow!