Update policies.md

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Title: The Policies
---

Purpose
==================
The freenode project exists to help peer-directed project communities flourish.
Peer-directed projects combine open, informal participation with broad licensing
and wide dissemination of output.

freenode provides facilities to peer-directed project communities, including those
of free and open source software (FOSS). The IRC component of freenode is a
self-referential medium, existing mainly to service IRC users — but the network
was created to serve groups that exist outside of IRC. freenode is designed to encourage
community members to improve their skills in the areas of cooperative effort, interpersonal 
communication and project coordination, and to create a real-time bridge to the outside world
for our target communities.

Nickname ownership
==================

Nicknames are allocated on a first-come, first-served basis, to the first person
who registers the name with NickServ. However, we expect users to act in good
faith and reserve the right to remove a nickname registration where we believe
that this has not been the case.
Nickname and account registrations expire ten weeks after they are last used.
For nicknames, ‘used’ means that you were using the nickname while logged in to
the account which owns it. For accounts, ‘used’ means that you logged in to the
account, regardless of the nickname you used to do so. Nicknames which are the
primary account name only expire when the entire account is expired.

In some cases, such as for very old accounts, we may, at our discretion, extend
the expiry time of a nickname or account. We will not normally do this beyond 15
weeks past the last use.

Some nicknames and accounts, including but not limited to some of those owned by
current or former network staff, do not expire at all. These accounts can be
identified by the ‘Hold’ flag in their NickServ info output.

Nicknames and accounts which are expired will not automatically be dropped.
Please contact network staff if you would like to take over an expired nickname.

Channel ownership
=================

Channels on freenode fall into one of two categories. Primary channels, which
begin with a single # character, are reserved for on-topic projects. If you’d
like to take over one of these channels, then you’ll need to be associated in
some way with the project in question. Topical, or ‘about’ channels, begin with
two # characters, and these are allocated on a first-come, first-served basis to
the first person who registers it with ChanServ. As with nicknames, however, we
reserve the right to remove or alter registrations where we believe they have
not been made in good faith.

Primary channels do not expire with inactivity, though they can be claimed at
any time by a representative of an on-topic project with the appropriate name.
Topical channels expire after 60 days in which no user on the access list for
the channel has joined it. Further information, policies and guidelines relating
to channel ownership can be found under [group registration](http://freenode.net/groupreg).

On-topic Use
============

freenode’s primary goal is to encourage and foster the development and use of
free and open source software projects and other peer-directed communities
producing broadly licensed creative output. Any project falling under this broad
description is likely to be considered on-topic for the purposes of primary
channel naming and other project services which we may provide, but individual
decisions may be made at the discretion of staff. 

We strongly urge you to adhere to the [channel guidelines](http://freenode.net/changuide) and [catalyst guidelines](http://freenode.net/catalysts).



Off-topic Use
=============

We expect all users of the network, whether affiliated with a project or not, to
act in good faith and in accordance with both their local laws and those
applicable where freenode operates. Use of freenode and its facilities is a
privilege, not a right, and may be withdrawn where we believe that this has not
been the case.

Unlawful activities and related support activities are considered off-topic, as are
inappropriate advertissing, heavy media file trading, proprietary game software modding,
warez, porn and various forms of antisocial behaviour, including (but not limited to) 
political, racial, ethnic, religious or gender-related invective.

In accordance with UK law freenode has no tolerance for any activity that could be construed
as: 

* incitement to racial hatred
* incitement to religious hatred

or any other behaviour meant to deliberately put upon a person harassment, alarm or distress.
We do NOT endorse or encourage discrimination on the grounds of race, religion gender or sexual preference and 
operate with a zero-tolerance policy for libel and defamation.

While we believe in the concept of freedom of thought and freedom of expression, freenode does not
operate on the basis of absolute freedom of speech, and we impose limitations, e.g. on "hate speech".

We expect all members of the community to be respectful of one another and of the privacy of others, 
and we reserve the right to terminate anyone's access to our services at our discretion.


Unlawful Activity
=============
freenode cannot condone or support behaviour which is clearly unlawful. While we do not have the resources
to closely monitor the thousands of channels on the network, volunteers are required by policy to pass on credible
information, provided by you as a user of the freenode prokect, about anay unlawful activities. This is true whether you
are talking about your own activities or those of someone else. Please be aware that we have this responsibility.

freenode and financial transactions
=============

We appreciate that end users may sometimes wish to reward a project or a project
contributor after having had a positive support experience in a project channel
and it is great when this results in a donation to the project in question or
perhaps a micropayment to the contributor concerned or the purchase of an item
from the contributor's wish list. 

Nevertheless, we would urge our users to carry out their own due diligence
before entering into financial transactions of any kind and stress that any
financial transactions entered into on the freenode network must be undertaken
entirely at the user's risk and freenode accepts no liability for any losses
incurred as the result of such transactions.