Project:About

Our Mission

Vivipedia's purpose is to improve the welfare of animals in captivity and increase vivarium enthusiasts' access to expert care information. Most information on the Internet is inaccurate or outdated - and Vivipedia's mission is to change that. Articles on Vivipedia document the best practices used by experts across the world, and are constantly reviewed and revised to keep up with evolving care standards. Our goal is to be the best source of vivarium information and to ensure animal welfare worldwide.

What is Vivipedia?

Vivipedia is a community-driven knowledge base for vivarium enthusiasts. Anyone can submit edits to Vivipedia, and new information is constantly and carefully reviewed for accuracy before changes are published. Wherever possible, we rely on scientific research, empirical evidence, and the experience of experts - in that order. This ensures information on Vivipedia remains high-quality, unbiased, and fresh.

Why Vivipedia?

Many websites that offer care information do so with the intention of selling something. Their information is often biased toward the products they sell - rather than what's best for the animal. Forums, Facebook Groups, and clubs can provide meaningful ways for community members to make friends and chat, but they aren't great for providing a single source of information that can be relied on. They're difficult to search, and often fall victim to excessive moderation and/or elite capture. Information on Vivipedia is unbiased, and created and governed democratically - and it always will be.

Terms of Service

Vivipedia.net ("Vivipedia") provides information and services that enable people to connect with each other, and share information & media. The Terms of Service ("Terms") govern your use of Vivipedia and the information, media, and services we offer, except where we expressly state that these terms do not apply.

Services we provide

Our mission is to improve the welfare of animals in captivity and increase vivarium enthusiasts' access to expert care information. Our goal is to be the best source of vivarium information and to ensure animal welfare worldwide.

Provide you information

Vivipedia publishes information about plants, animals, and other organisms in order to improve their welfare and conservation status - and increase the access to high-quality information for enthusiasts around the world. We help you find and connect with information, media, and people with this in mind.

Share your knowledge and expertise

We enable you to share the information you have obtained through research and experience by publishing information, making edits to Vivipedia's pages and articles, and uploading media for other people to view and access.

How our services are funded

Instead of paying to use Vivipedia and the other services we offer, by using Vivipedia (to which these Terms apply) you agree that we can show you sponsored content that businesses and organizations pay us to promote them. We strive to maintain the integrity and objectivity of the information we provide, and do not allow our pages to be influenced or captured by business interests. Wherever possible, we rely on scientific research, empirical evidence, and the experience of experts - in that order. When we recommend an organization, product, or service, we do so because we have evidence they are reliable. If we decide that an organization, product, or service no longer meets our standards, they may be removed from our service.

We may provide sponsors with reports about our service to help them understand how people are interacting with their organization, product, or service on Vivipedia. We do not share information that directly identifies you (information such as your name or email address that by itself can be used to contact you or identifies who you are).

Your commitments to Vivipedia and our community

We provide these services to you and others to help advance our mission. In exchange, we need you to make the following commitments:

1. Who can use Vivipedia

When people stand behind their actions, our community is safer and more accountable. For this reason, you must:

• Uphold our standards of objectivity and quality when contributing to Vivipedia.
• Provide information that, to the best of your knowledge, is accurate.
• Create only one account.
• Not share your password or allow others to use your account on Vivipedia.

You cannot use Vivipedia if:

• You are under 13 years old.
• You have been convicted of animal abuse, animal smuggling, or crimes related to environmental or habitat destruction.
• You are a convicted sex offender.
• We have previously disabled your account from accessing or editing Vivipedia.
• You are prohibited from receiving our products or services under applicable laws.

2. What you can share and do on Vivipedia

We want people to use Vivipedia to share information and media to enrich the lives of others, and animals - but not at the expense of the safety and well-being of others or the integrity of the community.

You therefore agree not to engage in the conduct described below (or to facilitate or support others in doing so):

1. You may not use our Service to do or share anything:

• That violates these Terms, or other terms and policies that apply to your use of our Service.
• That is unlawful, misleading, discriminatory, or fraudulent.
• That you do not own or have the necessary rights to share.
• That infringes or violates someone else's rights, including their intellectual property rights (such as by infringing another's copyright or trademark, or distributing or selling fake or counterfeit goods).

1. You may not upload viruses or malicious code, use the services to send spam, or do anything else that could disable, overburden, interfere with, or impair the proper working, integrity, operation, or appearance of our services, systems, or Services.
2. You may not access, collect, or distribute data from our Services using automated means (e.g., through the use of "scrapers", "crawlers", large language models, or generative AI) or attempt to access data you do not have permission to access.
3. You may not sell, license, or purchase any information or data obtained from us or our Services.
4. You may not misuse any reporting, flagging, dispute, or appeals channel, such as by making fraudulent, duplicative, or groundless reports or appeals.

We can remove or restrict access to content that is in violation of these provisions. We can also suspend or disable your account for conduct that violates these provisions.

3. The permissions you give us

We need certain permissions from you to provide our services: Permission to use content you create and share: To provide our services we need you to give us some legal permissions (known as a "license") to use this content. This is solely for the purposes of providing and improving our Products and Services as described in Section 1 above. Specifically, when you share, post, or upload content that is covered by intellectual property rights on or in connection with our Products or Services, you grant us an exclusive, transferable, sub-licensable, royalty-free, and worldwide license to host, use, distribute, modify, run, copy, publicly perform or display, translate, and create derivative works of your content for commercial purposes. This license will end when your content is deleted from our systems.

If you use content covered by intellectual property rights that we have and make available in our Products or Services (for example, images, designs, videos, or sounds we provide that you add to content you create or share on Vivipedia), we retain all rights to that content. You can only use our copyrights or trademarks (or any similar marks) with our prior written permission. You must obtain our written permission to modify, translate, create derivative works of, decompile, or reverse engineer our products or their components, or otherwise attempt to extract information or source code from us, unless an exception or limitation applies under applicable law.

4. Additional provisions

Updating our terms: We work constantly to improve our services and develop new features to make our Products better for you and our community. As a result, we may need to update these Terms from time to time to accurately reflect our services and practices, to promote a safe and secure experience on our Products and Services, and/or to comply with applicable law. Once any updated Terms are in effect, you will be bound by them if you continue to use our Products or Services.

We work hard to provide the best Products we can and to specify clear guidelines for everyone who uses them. Our Products, however, are provided "as is," and we make no guarantees that they always will be safe, secure, or error-free, or that they will function without disruptions, delays, or imperfections. To the extent permitted by law, we also DISCLAIM ALL WARRANTIES, WHETHER EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, TITLE, AND NON-INFRINGEMENT. We do not control or direct what people and others do or say, and we are not responsible for their actions or conduct (whether online or offline) or any content they share (including offensive, inappropriate, obscene, unlawful, and other objectionable content). We cannot predict when issues might arise with our Products or Services. Accordingly, our liability shall be limited to the fullest extent permitted by applicable law, and under no circumstance will we be liable to you for any lost profits, revenues, information, or data, or consequential, special, indirect, exemplary, punitive, or incidental damages arising out of or related to these Terms or the Vivipedia Products (however caused and on any theory of liability, including negligence), even if we have been advised of the possibility of such damages. Our aggregate liability arising out of or relating to these Terms or the Meta Products will not exceed the greater of $100 or the amount you have paid us in the past twelve months.

Other: These Terms make up the entire agreement between you and Vivipedia regarding your use of our Products and Services. They supersede any prior agreements. Some of the Products or Services we offer are also governed by supplemental terms. If you use any of those Products, supplemental terms will be made available and will become part of our agreement with you. If any portion of these Terms is found to be unenforceable, the unenforceable portion will be deemed amended to the minimum extent necessary to make it enforceable, and if it can’t be made enforceable, then it will be severed and the remaining portion will remain in full force and effect. If we fail to enforce any of these Terms, it will not be considered a waiver. Any amendment to or waiver of these Terms must be made in writing and signed by us. You will not transfer any of your rights or obligations under these Terms to anyone else without our consent. These Terms do not confer any third-party beneficiary rights. All of our rights and obligations under these Terms are freely assignable by us in connection with a merger, acquisition, or sale of assets, or by operation of law or otherwise. We may need to change the username for your account in certain circumstances (for example, if someone else claims the username and it appears unrelated to the name you use in everyday life). We always appreciate your feedback and other suggestions about our products and services. But we may use feedback and other suggestions without any restriction or obligation to compensate you, and we are under no obligation to keep them confidential. We reserve all rights not expressly granted to you.