Terms and Conditions of Use

Welcome to OxfordRomance. We hope you enjoy it.

OxfordRomance is provided for your enjoyment, and made available to you at no charge. In return, we expect you to respect our hospitality, and follow the etiquette.
Do not create profiles or send messages which are offensive, obnoxious, misleading, crude, cruel, false, or "spam". Serious abusers will have their account terminated without warning; they will be blocked permanently, and will not be permitted to return. We do try to be fair; however our decision is final.
You are expected to provide accurate information. In particular, you must sign up with the correct gender, and using your own, personal email address. If you upload a photograph, it must be of yourself.
[The "correct-gender" rule is aimed squarely at would-be trolls. If you are non-heteronormative, transitioning, etc, you are, of course, explicitly welcome.]
Communicate clearly, honestly, and with respect. In other words, "be excellent to each other". Note that people have different models of attraction and of courtship, and different boundaries; conventions don't always apply.
[Listen to the other person. Also, remember that the other person is not telepathic, so use your words rather than relying on non-verbal "signals" (which the other person may not correctly perceive). The word "stop" always means "stop!"].
Copyright: we don't require copyright-transfer, or assert ownership of your data, but obviously, if you post a profile, message, or photograph, you are implicitly giving us the right to store and publish that content in accordance with the normal functionality of the website.
Do not create spam. If you misuse our site to send bulk messages, we may publish your name and email address so that complaints may be directed to you. Likewise, we may do this if you abuse the site with false information, or otherwise cause distress to other members.
Data protection: by giving your data to us, you implicitly consent to its use for the purpose of this website. We take great care to protect your private data (and so we are compliant with the data protection act). [We are exempt from the notification requirement of the DPA, as a not-for-profit: we still comply with the rules (we would do so anyway on principle), but don't have to pay a yearly fee to the ICO.]
Cookies: we don't participate in any form of user-tracking (eg 3rd-party analytics, targeted-advertising, etc). While you are logged-in, we use a temporary and benign session-cookie (PHPSESSID), which we discard after ∼ 24 minutes. [This cookie is 'strictly necessary' for the site's core functionality, so the ICO sensibly considers this exempt from the requirement to nag.]
If you are successful, please let us know - this is what makes it all worthwhile. You could also consider helping out on the team, or making a small financial contribution.
In the event that you get married, we think it's only fair that you send us a piece of wedding cake :-)
[Seriously, Cupid likes cake... we're not kidding about this one!]
We welcome your opinions and feedback. Please do read the documentation first though :-)

Disclaimer

This site is not in any way affiliated with Oxford University or any other organisation. All correspondence regarding the site should be made directly to us (see the feedback page for details).
This site is provided "as is". We accept no responsibility for issues arising from your use/misuse of it, including but not limited to:
- Relationship or conflicts which may arise between members.
- Offensive content or inaccurate or defamatory information in any profile or message on the system.
- Damage to your computer through any virus, software or files that may be transmitted through this site.
There is no warranty of any kind for this site, including but not limited to the fitness of this site for serving any purpose, its reliability, its availability and its functionality.
We trust the contributors to the site to be honest and the onus is on you as a member to provide accurate information. In cases where this trust is breached, we reserve the right to take appropriate action as determined by us, the administrators of the site.
Please note that comments posted on the site, whether they are profiles or private messages, are 'owned' by the poster. They do not represent our own views, and are not explicitly authorised by us. They are enclosed in a box to denote this. We cannot read all profiles when they are posted, therefore we may not be aware of any abuse that they may contain. If you would like to report abuse, please email abuse@ruo3.org and we will investigate as soon as we can.
Reasonable steps have been taken to ensure that confidential information (private messages and e-mail addresses) are not available to other members. However, no liability can be accepted for the consequences of information theft.