Terms & Conditions

This is a template drafted for Whispering Shadows' current functionality. It is not legal advice — have it reviewed by a qualified professional before relying on it, and fill in the bracketed placeholders (operator name, jurisdiction, contact address) for your situation.

Agreement to these terms

By creating an account or using Whispering Shadows ("we", "us", "the library"), you agree to these Terms & Conditions and our Privacy Policy. If you don't agree, please don't use the site.

Who can use Whispering Shadows

You must be at least 13 years old to create an account. You're responsible for keeping your login credentials secure and for anything that happens under your account.

Your content

You keep ownership. Stories, comments, and everything else you post remain yours. By posting, you grant Whispering Shadows a non-exclusive license to host, display, and distribute it on the site so other members can read it.

You're responsible for what you post. You confirm that your content is your own work (or you have the right to post it), doesn't infringe anyone else's copyright or other rights, and doesn't violate the law or these terms.

Reading is public; participating requires an account. Anyone can read published stories and comments without signing in. Posting a story, leaving a comment, following another member, and similar actions require a free account.

Moderation. At this stage, submitted stories are not reviewed before publishing — they go live immediately. Comments have never been pre-reviewed either, but members can report a comment, story, or profile they believe violates these terms, and an admin can resolve the report, block the account, or remove the content.

Prohibited content and conduct

You agree not to post or engage in:

• Illegal content, or content that promotes illegal activity.
• Child sexual abuse material (CSAM), non-consensual intimate imagery, or any sexually explicit content involving minors — zero tolerance. An account found to have posted this will be permanently banned and reported to [the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC) or the equivalent authority in your jurisdiction] and law enforcement, as required by law.
• Harassment, threats, hate speech, or targeted abuse of another member.
• Spam, or content posted purely to advertise or scrape the site.
• Impersonating another person, or a Whispering Shadows admin.
• Attempting to bypass moderation, rate limits, or account restrictions (including creating a new account to evade a block).

This is horror fiction — dark, violent, and unsettling themes (blood, death, monsters, and worse) are the genre, not a violation. The line is real-world harm and illegal content, not fictional intensity.

Enforcement and account termination

We may resolve a report, remove content, or block or delete an account (at our discretion) that violates these terms. You may delete your own account at any time from your account settings — this anonymizes your login credentials but keeps your posted content attributed to a de-identified account, since it may still be part of conversations other members are having.

Disclaimers

Stories and comments reflect the views of the individual members who wrote them, not Whispering Shadows. The site is provided "as is" without warranties of any kind, to the fullest extent permitted by law. We aren't liable for content posted by members, or for interruptions, errors, or data loss, to the fullest extent permitted by law.

Governing law

These terms are governed by the laws of [your jurisdiction], without regard to conflict-of-law principles.

Changes to these terms

We may update these terms as the site changes. We'll update the "last updated" date above when we do; continuing to use the site after a change means you accept the update.

Contact

Questions about these terms? Reach us at [contact email placeholder].