Community Membership Terms

Version: 2026-10-20 · Effective: October 20, 2026 · Permanent page: /notices/website/community-terms

These membership terms are part of our website Terms; our Privacy Policy explains the data. Available in the United States and its territories only. You must be 15 or older. We ask for your date of birth at sign-up; if you are under 15, sign-up is blocked, and the block is kept for that email address and device. Accounts found to be under 15 are closed.

Members aged 15 to 17

Members aged 15 to 17 can claim free founding spots. Paid memberships for a member under 18 must be bought by a parent or guardian, who accepts these terms for the member. At paid checkout the buyer must confirm: "I am 18 or older, or I am a parent/guardian buying for a member aged 15-17." If your account shows you are under 18, the account page tells you that a parent or guardian must complete the purchase.

Membership and billing

Membership is sold per section (Ham Radio, Drones, Industrial, IT, Biomed, General Conversations and future sections) for $1.00 per section per year, or $3.00 per year for an all-sections bundle (includes future sections). Sales tax is added where it applies and shown at checkout. It is an automatically renewing yearly subscription: each year on your renewal date we charge $1.00 for every section you hold (or $3.00 for the bundle), plus any sales tax, to the card on file, until you cancel. You can buy several sections in one checkout. We email you 30 days, 7 days and 1 day before each renewal with the sections, the amount and the date, and a one-click link to the Stripe customer portal where you can manage or cancel. If you cancel, you won't be charged again and your membership stays active until the end of the paid year. If a renewal payment fails, Stripe retries it; if the retries fail, the membership lapses. A lapsed member's published posts stay up, but they can't post or reply until they rejoin.

Free founding memberships. Each section has 100 founding spots. A founding membership is free forever, with no subscription and no charge, unless the account is banned. One free account per email address.

Free founding bundle ("all sections, while spots last"): open as long as any section still has founding spots. A bundle claim gives you every section free forever, including sections that are already full and future sections. It uses one spot in each section that still has room and none in full sections. Bundle claims close only when every section has filled its 100 spots.
Single-section free claim: needs a spot left in that section.
Paid membership in a section opens automatically once that section's 100 founding spots are taken; until then the section is free founding only. The paid all-sections bundle opens once every section is full.

Reading the community is free and public. Only members of a section can post or reply in it. Every post is reviewed by our AI moderator before it is published.

Refunds

This 60-day rule covers community memberships only. IDMinder software has its own 14-day rule in the Software Refund Policy; see also our Refund Policy. We refund a membership charge only when you ask, within 60 days of that charge, through our contact form (choose "Refund request") or by replying to any of our emails. This also applies after a suspension. Banned members have no automatic or on-request refund: they may file a ban appeal stating their case, and the owner personally decides whether the ban stays, they are refunded, or the ban is lifted. A refund ends the membership for that charge and cancels its renewal. A chargeback or dispute suspends the membership until it is resolved; a lost dispute ends it.

Account security

Sign-in is by email link. Two-factor authentication (an authenticator app, with backup codes and email codes as fallback) is required before posting. We never reset two-factor protection without proof of control of your email; a full reset adds a 72-hour posting hold.

Moderation and strikes

A post may be held with a private note and no strike.
Strike 1: written warning.
Strike 2: 7-day posting suspension.
Strike 3: 30-day posting suspension.
Strike 4: permanent ban (renewal canceled).

Strikes count within a rolling 90 days. Threats, hate and doxxing (posting someone's personal information) lead to an immediate permanent ban (renewal canceled). A banned member has no automatic or on-request refund; a refund happens only if the owner decides on it after a ban appeal. Suspended members can still read. Bans apply to the email address and payment customer. When a member is banned, only their abusive or rule-breaking posts are removed; their other posts stay. Accounts of anyone under 15 are closed (ban reason: underage). Each action can be appealed once, using the one-time link in the notice email (it works without signing in, including while banned). Appeals of warnings and suspensions are reviewed by our AI moderator agent, and escalated if needed to our lead AI agent and then the owner. Ban appeals go to the owner, who reviews each one personally with the violations in front of him and decides one of three things: the ban stays, the member is refunded, or the ban is lifted. Posts and other appeals are not reviewed by human staff unless they are escalated to the owner.

Data we store

Your email address (encrypted) and a one-way hash of it, your public display name, the fact that you confirmed you are 15 or older (we do not keep your date of birth; for members under 18 we keep only the month you turn 18, so we can show the parent-or-guardian rule for paid checkout), the age confirmation given at paid checkout, your memberships and renewal dates, a Stripe customer and subscription ID (our checkout uses Stripe; with Stripe Managed Payments, Stripe is the merchant of record and collects sales tax; we never see card numbers), your encrypted authenticator secret and hashed backup codes, hashed network and device identifiers used to stop abuse (kept up to 30 days), and moderation and security records. We send only transactional email (sign-in links, codes, receipts, renewal reminders, security and moderation notices), never marketing. Ask us to delete your account at any time by replying to any of our emails.