Partner Policy

1. Who This Covers

This policy applies to anyone who owns or manages a Vortex partner guild, and to every integration connected to it: the embed, the CDN script, the npm SDK, and any app or bot built on the Vortex partner API (together, your "integration"). It applies on top of the Terms of Service, Community Guidelines and Privacy Policy. If they conflict, the stricter rule applies.

2. Your Responsibility

• You're responsible for your guild, your integration, and what happens in your guild's channels, wherever people read or send messages from.
• Everything sent through your integration is Vortex content. The Community Guidelines apply to it exactly as they do on Vortex.
• You're responsible for anyone you give guild roles, moderator permissions or access to your client secret.
• You must keep your guild's name, logo and description accurate, and appropriate for a general audience.

3. How We Expect You to Moderate

Partner guilds have to be actively moderated. At a minimum, you're expected to:

• Have someone responsible. At least one person (you or a moderator you trust) who checks the guild regularly and can act on problems.
• Post clear rules in your guild description or a rules channel, consistent with the Community Guidelines.
• Act quickly on serious harm. Remove threats, harassment, hate speech, sexual content involving minors, doxxing, scams and self-harm encouragement as soon as you see them, and report anything illegal to Vortex.
• Respond to reports about your guild within a reasonable time, normally within 48 hours.
• Be fair and consistent. Don't use moderation tools to harass people, settle personal disputes, or punish people for using Vortex features as intended.
• Protect younger users. Vortex allows users from 13 and up. Keep your guild suitable for that audience.
• Keep your site in line, too. Content around your embed or app on your own site must not violate the Community Guidelines or mislead people about Vortex.

4. Moderation Tools

You have the following tools, from your guild dashboard and through your integration:

• Timeouts stop a member from sending messages in your guild for a set time.
• Bans remove a member from your guild on Vortex and on every site using your integration. Banned members can't sign in to your integration.
• Roles and channel permissions control who can see and post where, and who can moderate.
• Message deletion, slowmode and the profanity filter help keep conversations under control.

Every moderation action is recorded in your guild's audit log. Use these tools in good faith and give a short, honest reason when you act. Guild bans and timeouts only apply to your guild; they don't affect anyone's Vortex account elsewhere.

5. Reports

People can report individual messages, and report your guild as a whole, from Vortex and from your integration. Reports go to Vortex staff. You must not hide, disable, block or discourage the report options Vortex provides, and you must not retaliate against people for reporting.

Vortex staff may contact you about reports, ask you to take action, or act on your guild directly when needed to keep people safe.

6. Users & Their Data

• Only use the information you receive (usernames, avatars, messages and the like) to run your guild and integration, within the scopes people approved.
• Don't sell user data, use it to track people across other sites, or build profiles of people from it.
• Stop using someone's data when they disconnect your app or delete their account, except where the law requires you to keep it.
• Never ask people for their Vortex password or show a fake Vortex sign-in screen. Signing in always happens on Vortex.
• Tell people on your site how you use their data, in line with your own privacy policy and the laws that apply to you.

7. Honesty & Security

• Don't present your guild or integration as operated or endorsed by Vortex.
• Keep your client secret secret. Rotate it immediately if it leaks, and tell us if you think user data was exposed.
• Don't try to get around rate limits, site restrictions, permissions or other protections, and don't access data your integration wasn't given.
• Keep message content safe on your site. Show it as text or use the formatted HTML Vortex provides; never inject raw message content into your pages.

8. Not Allowed

• Using your guild or integration for scams, phishing, malware, spam or fake engagement.
• Sexual content, or content harmful to minors.
• Real-World Gambling, regulated goods or anything else illegal where you or your users are.
• Automated mass messaging, or bots that post without being clearly labeled.
• Reselling, sublicensing or sharing access to your integration with third parties without permission.

9. Enforcement

If a partner breaks this policy, Vortex may, depending on how serious it is: send a warning, moderate the guild directly, limit features, disable the integration, remove partner status, delete the guild, or take action against the accounts involved under the Terms of Service. We'll usually warn you first and give you a chance to fix things, but we can act immediately when people are at risk or the law requires it.

If you think we got something wrong, contact us and we'll take another look.

10. Changes to This Policy

We may update this policy as the partner program grows. We'll update the date at the top and, for significant changes, let partners know ahead of time through their dashboard or by email.

11. Contact

Questions about this policy can be sent to [email protected] or submitted as a support ticket from Contact Us.