Terms of service

1. Agreeing to these terms

By using pickoracuriouscrew.forum you agree to these terms. They're a contract between you and Curious Crew Media Ltd (company number 14872306, registered in England & Wales at Unit 7, The Kiln Works, 42 Barrowfield Street, Sheffield S1 4RG). If you don't agree with them, please don't use the site.

2. Membership

• Reading is open to everyone. Posting requires an account, which we grant by hand after you ask us.
• Membership is free. There is no paid tier.
• You must be 16 or over and using the site in a work or professional context.
• One account per person. Your login is yours — don't share it, and tell us if you think someone else has it.
• You can close your account at any time by emailing us.

3. The three posting rules

These are the whole rulebook and they're the reason this place works:

1. Bring a number. Anecdotes are fine, but a thread with measurements in it helps far more people.
2. Say what failed. Nobody is judging. The failure posts are the ones people bookmark.
3. Disclose your interest. If you work for, invest in, consult for or resell a tool, say so in the post where you mention it. We're genuinely fine with vendors here. We're not fine with undisclosed ones.

4. Things you must not post

• Confidential information belonging to your employer, your clients or anyone else — including screenshots that haven't been properly redacted.
• Personal data about identifiable individuals without a lawful basis and their knowledge.
• Anything unlawful, defamatory, harassing, discriminatory, or designed to intimidate another member.
• Content that infringes someone's copyright, trade marks or other rights.
• Malware, exploits, or instructions whose main purpose is to cause harm.
• Marketing. Not "subtle" marketing either. We can tell.

Moderation here is human and unglamorous: usually a friendly nudge, occasionally an edit with a note explaining it, rarely a removal. Repeated undisclosed promotion or any harassment gets an account closed without a warning. We keep a short log of moderation decisions and will share the reasoning with you on request.

5. Who owns what you write

You keep the copyright in everything you post. By posting, you grant us a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free licence to host, display, format, excerpt and archive your contribution as part of the forum, and to quote it in our own write-ups with your handle attached.

If you'd rather a specific post wasn't quoted elsewhere, say so in the post and we'll respect it. If you ask us to delete a post we'll normally do it, unless removing it would gut a thread other people rely on — in which case we'll talk to you about anonymising instead.

6. Our editorial independence

Because people ask, and because it belongs in the terms rather than just in a nice paragraph on the homepage:

• We buy our own seats and licences for everything we review.
• We publish no affiliate links and accept no payment for coverage, placement or scores.
• We don't send drafts to vendors before publishing. Vendors get the same version as you, at the same time.
• We correct factual errors quickly and mark the correction visibly. We don't quietly soften an opinion because someone asked nicely.

7. No professional advice

Everything on this site — teardowns, guides, threads, field notes, prices, scores — is opinion and experience shared in good faith. It is not legal, financial, tax, security or regulatory advice, and it isn't a substitute for someone qualified who understands your specific situation.

Pricing changes constantly. Model behaviour changes constantly. Verify anything cost-related against the vendor's own pricing page before you commit budget, and please don't build a compliance position on a forum post.

8. Third-party links and tools

We link out a lot. We don't control those sites, we don't warrant their content, and your use of any third-party tool is governed by that vendor's own terms. If a link rots, tell us and we'll fix it.

9. Availability

We try hard to keep the site up, but it's provided "as is". We don't promise uninterrupted access, and we may change, suspend or retire parts of the site — including individual threads or features — with reasonable notice where we can give it.

10. Liability

Nothing in these terms limits our liability for death or personal injury caused by negligence, for fraud, or for anything else that can't lawfully be limited.

Subject to that: we aren't liable for indirect or consequential loss, loss of profit, loss of data, or business interruption arising from your use of the site or from decisions you make based on content here. Our total aggregate liability to you is limited to £100, which reflects that the service is free.

11. Ending things

You can leave whenever you like. We can suspend or close an account that breaks these terms, and we'll tell you why. Sections 5, 7, 10 and 12 survive the end of your membership.

12. Governing law

These terms are governed by the laws of England & Wales, and the courts of England & Wales have exclusive jurisdiction. If you're a consumer in another part of the UK, you keep any mandatory protections your local law gives you.

13. Changes

We'll update the date at the top when these change and post a note in the forum for anything significant. Continuing to use the site after a change means you accept it.