Dev Lounge Policy

The Dev Lounge is a lightweight, anonymous, 24-hour space for practical first-contributor questions, contributor encouragement, and score-card discussion. It is a community feature of WelcomeScore, not a private chat service.

This policy applies to messages, reply snapshots, score-card attachments, reactions, visible developer handles and avatars, private reports, safety verification, and related behavior in the Dev Lounge. Reply previews may link to the temporary source message while it remains available. A reply mention is plain display text; it does not identify, notify, verify, or create a relationship with another participant. This policy works alongside the project Code of Conduct, Terms & Conditions, and Privacy Policy.

WelcomeScore does not host, broker, review, approve, escrow, insure, supervise, or guarantee any interaction between Lounge participants. The feature must not be used to arrange work, hire or recruit people, request payment, sell services, solicit investments, offer rewards, conduct trades, or move a user into a private or off-platform transaction.

You are solely responsible for deciding whether to read, trust, contact, respond to, follow, download from, pay, hire, collaborate with, or otherwise interact with another user or external service. WelcomeScore, ETHIOR, the original authors, maintainers, contributors, and service providers are not responsible for user communications, external links, third-party content, agreements, transactions, representations, conduct, losses, or harm arising from them, to the maximum extent permitted by law.

The Lounge uses a temporary browser-generated developer handle and avatar rather than a traditional user account. This does not make a message private, confidential, or anonymous against every possible technical or legal process. Do not publish information that you would not want visible to other Lounge participants.

Messages and related chat records are designed to disappear after 24 hours. Reactions and reply snapshots are used to support the Lounge feature during its limited lifetime. Private report and moderation-decision records are designed to expire after 30 days. Short-lived hashed rate-limit records and verification proofs are used only to protect the Lounge against abuse; WelcomeScore does not retain a raw IP address or a public browser fingerprint in these records. A configured visitor-verification provider may process its own challenge token under its own policy. See the Privacy Policy for the service-level data boundary.

WelcomeScore may apply technical controls, remove content, limit interaction, suspend participation, preserve information needed for an investigation, or report conduct to a platform provider or relevant authority when reasonably necessary for safety, security, legal compliance, or enforcement of published policies.

When a participant sends a private report, WelcomeScore may use a configured server-side AI provider to classify only the reported public message and report category against these published rules. The provider does not receive reporter identity, raw network data, credentials, unrelated Lounge history, or private account data. The result is a constrained safety signal, not a statement of fact, a legal conclusion, or a guarantee about a person.

A report never automatically removes a message by itself. Automated hiding is limited to a clear, high-confidence serious violation such as exposed credentials, a deceptive or malicious link, a scam, or severe harassment or threat. Ambiguous, unavailable, or lower-confidence outcomes remain visible and are recorded privately for owner review. WelcomeScore may later correct, restore, remove, or restrict content after review. The existence of the Lounge does not create a duty to monitor every message or guarantee that harmful, false, inappropriate, or unlawful content will be detected or removed. Do not rely on moderation as a substitute for your own judgment or safety precautions.

For harmful, abusive, fraudulent, or policy-violating content, use the Lounge’s private Report privately control and provide only the minimum necessary detail. Do not repost harmful material publicly or use the Lounge to report a security vulnerability. If you believe moderation action was mistaken, use the project Code of Conduct process and include the minimum public context needed for review.

For a suspected security issue, follow SECURITY.md. For imminent danger, credible threats, or a crime in progress, contact the relevant local emergency service or platform safety channel first. WelcomeScore is not an emergency service.

ETHIOR may update this policy to reflect product changes, safety requirements, legal obligations, or operational needs. The current version and effective date will be published on this page and in the source repository. Continued participation after an effective update is subject to the updated policy to the extent permitted by law.