Custom Content Authorship Guidelines

Here at the Neverwinter Vault, we celebrate a long history of creativity, collaboration, and generosity. Together - one person building upon the work of another - we can achieve results none of us could have produced individually.

1. The Basic Rule. Be excellent to each other. Life is difficult enough as it is without making trouble for each other in places where we're all just trying to enjoy our free time. Be gracious, and show respect for differing opinions. Try to avoid hostility when misunderstandings arise, and don't presume a hostile intent on the part of others. Endeavor always to deal with members of the NWN Vault community in a spirit of good will.
2. Purpose. Content uploaded to the Neverwinter Vault is presumed to be provided for the purpose of being used to build or play Neverwinter Nights games.
3. Terms of Use. All new content uploaded to the Neverwinter Vault requires specifying terms of use. Users of that content are expected to respect the authors' specified terms for usage, editation, or redistribution, of their work.
   • ​Reasonable and Customary. The new Vault recognizes a default standard of use for content on which specific terms of use have not been explicitly listed. This pertains, in particular, to content migrated from the old Vault, for which the owner has not come to the new Vault to assume stewardship (the project shows as still owned by the Migrate Wizard), or to new content for which no explicit permission and licensing options have been specified. In these cases, it is presumed that the applicable license terms follow the "reasonable and customary forms of re-use and re-distribution" observed on the old Vault. This means in practice that the content was provided for others to build, or to play, Neverwinter Nights games, with attribution and without reuse restrictions, and excluding unreasonable practices such as plagiarism. For such uses there is no requirement that the author be contacted for permission before doing so (see requesting permission under point 4 below).
     • Most projects migrated to the new Vault by the Migrate Wizard were incorrectly listed with the license term "Free & Open Only if the Project is Open." The actual terms that apply to any item still owned by the Migrate Wizard are those specified in the "reasonable and customary" clause above.
   • The Vault obviously cannot speak authoritatively for the wishes of authors who are no longer active in the Neverwinter Vault community. However, those who wish to set more restrictive licensing terms on their work are expected to have already done so, either on the old Vault prior to migration, or when uploading that content to the Neverwinter Vault.
   • Please do not use, edit, or redistribute somebody's work in any way that goes against their expressed wishes. This is unlawful, extremely rude, and not sanctioned by the Neverwinter Vault.
4. Refrain from uploading content to the Neverwinter Vault if you do not have permission to do so. Mark any content that you upload with the appropriate Permissions & Licensing settings to let people know whether and how they may reuse and build upon your work.
   • Requesting Permission. Unless specified otherwise, it is not necessary to ask permission to use works as long as the license terms are observed (if any). You should obtain (and document) the author's permission for any use that differs from a work's specified license terms.
   • Neverwinter Nights game content on the Neverwinter Vault is not intended to be used for commercial purposes, since this is prohibited by the EULAs for the Neverwinter Nights games. 
   • Show respect for copyrights and trademarks. By uploading infringing content, you endanger the vault itself.
5. Use As Is. All content uploaded to the vault by definition includes the permission setting "Permission to Use As-Is". This is a minimal requirement to adhere to the site's purpose. If content cannot be used for that purpose at all, then there is no legitimate reason for it to be uploaded to the site.
6. If someone has, in accordance with your content's permissions settings at the time, created content that is dependent on your work, then please do not attempt to rescind that permission after the fact, or to prevent that use by removing it from the Vault.
   • If for some reason you must remove it, understand that we will not persecute these authors if they choose to incorporate your work in their own so that theirs may continue functioning, until a proper legal ruling in the matter is brought before us.
7. If your work has been used in defiance of your express wishes, or contrary to the permission settings at the time, or outright been stolen and illegally uploaded onto our platform, please alert vault administration[2] at once.
8. Authors who do not wish to place content into the custody of the Vault, and to instead to exercise direct control over the use and distribution of their work, are advised to host that work externally from the Vault. A page referencing that work may be established on the Vault, including a link to an external website where this content can be obtained. Any conditions that the author of such externally hosted work wishes to be respected with regard to its use and distribution should be clearly indicated to anyone that attempts to obtain it via an external link from the Vault.
9. The Neverwinter Vault reserves the right to take the page down if content links are broken, password-protected, or hidden behind a secondary account requirement to gain access to the files.
10. The Neverwinter Vault is NOT responsible for content or comments uploaded by users.

ADDENDUM: Vault Policy on Pornographic Content

1. The intention of this addendum is to protect the Neverwinter Vault from legal repercussions. Our definition of pornography is limited to legal standards. Since this is a gray area and covers multiple jurisdictions potentially, vault users are urged to adhere to the precautionary principle rather than push the limits of what is considered acceptable.
2. Child pornography is prohibited. The content will be deleted without warning. Users who post the content may be subject to ban without warning at discretion of staff.
3. Other pornographic images are prohibited from public display. The image will be taken down and the user who posted the content given a warning.
4. Pornographic game content shall be tagged with "Adult Content" by the user who posts the content. Vault staff reserves the right to apply this tag without warning.