Terms of use

1. What this is

This site (intensitynews.org) is a community-run feed for news posts, polls, predictions, and bounties. It is run by the operator of intensitynews.org, referred to here as "we" or "us". By creating an account or using the site you agree to these terms.

2. Accounts

• You sign up with a username and a password. We do not collect email addresses.
• You are responsible for keeping your password safe. We cannot recover a lost password because we do not have any way to verify who you are.
• One person, one account. Running multiple accounts to manipulate votes, predictions, or comments is grounds for an immediate ban.
• You must be old enough to enter into a contract in your country to create an account.

3. Cred

• Cred is an in-site unit of credibility. It is not money, securities, or any kind of regulated financial instrument.
• Cred has no cash value. You can spend it on the site (upvoting, staking on predictions, contributing to bounties), but there is no cash-out, no withdrawal, and no transfer of your balance to another account.
• If we add a way to buy cred with cryptocurrency in the future, those purchases will be subject to additional terms shown to you at the point of sale.
• We may correct balances if a bug or abuse caused them to be wrong.

4. What you post

• You keep ownership of what you post. You grant us a non-exclusive licence to host, display, and distribute it on this site.
• You must have the right to post anything you submit. Don't post other people's copyrighted work without permission.
• Don't post anything illegal, threatening, harassing, hateful, or sexually exploitative.
• Don't post spam, paid promotion, or links to scams.
• We can remove anything that breaks the rules without notice.

5. Predictions and bounties are a game

• Predictions and bounties are a game. You cannot win or lose real money.
• Resolutions are decided by the prediction's author and reviewed by moderators when challenged.
• Bounty submissions are accepted or rejected by the bounty's author. We do not arbitrate evidence quality unless we are notified of abuse.

6. Moderation

• Moderators can hide posts, lock comments, overturn predictions, and ban accounts.
• Moderation actions are recorded in an internal audit log.
• If we ban your account, that ends your ability to use the site. We will not reverse a ban simply because you ask us to.

7. Changes

We can change these terms at any time. The "last updated" date at the top of the page tells you when. Continuing to use the site after a change means you accept the new terms.

8. No warranty

This site is provided as-is. We do not promise it will be available, accurate, or fit for any particular use. To the extent allowed by law, our liability to you is limited to whatever you have paid us, which under the current set-up is zero.

9. Contact

If you need to reach us, send an in-site message to the admin account. You can do that at /messages/compose?to=inews_admin while logged in.

Disclaimer

Not advice

Nothing posted on this site — news, comments, polls, predictions, bounties, profiles, anything — is advice. Not investment advice, not legal advice, not medical advice, not military advice, not journalism that has been fact-checked by us. It is what other users typed into a box.

Predictions are guesses

A "prediction" on this site is a public guess about something that has not happened yet. The fact that someone with a good track record predicted it does not make it true. Don't make decisions in the real world based on a cred-staked guess.

Cred is not real money

Cred is the in-site unit of credibility. You earn it when other players respect your work, and you spend it on the site to upvote other people, stake on predictions, and contribute to bounties. It has no cash value, cannot be cashed out or withdrawn, and is not a security or any kind of regulated financial instrument. Don't treat your cred balance as savings.

No endorsement

Links posted on the news feed are submitted by users. We do not vet them. The fact that a story is highly upvoted is not a guarantee that it is true, that the source is trustworthy, or that we agree with it.

Use your own judgement

Read carefully, check sources, ask questions. If something on this site sounds too neat, too lurid, or too convenient, it probably is.

Acceptable use

Breaking these rules is grounds for a ban. They exist so the site stays useful. Most of them boil down to: act in good faith, attack the argument not the person, and don't be a bot.

Identity and accounts

• One person, one account. Sockpuppets get banned.
• Don't share your account with anyone else.
• Don't impersonate another user, a real-world figure, or staff.
• Bots are not allowed unless we have given written permission to a specific bot account.

Content rules

• No illegal content, full stop.
• No threats, harassment, doxxing, or targeted abuse.
• No hate speech, no slurs, no content sexualising children.
• No spam, no paid promotion, no link-laundering, no affiliate links unless disclosed.
• No malware, no phishing links, no scam tokens.
• No copyrighted material you don't have the right to post.
• If you are quoting someone, link the source. Don't pass quotes off as your own writing.

Manipulation

• No vote rings. We detect them and ban the whole ring.
• No coordinating with other accounts to push a story up the feed.
• No deliberately wrong predictions to grief other players' stakes.
• No fake bounty submissions. If you didn't actually find the answer, don't claim you did.
• No abusing the flag queue to harass authors you disagree with.

Predictions and bounties

• Resolve your own predictions honestly. The point of the game is your reputation.
• Provide evidence with every resolution. "Trust me" is not evidence.
• If a bounty asks for sources, link them. Don't summarise without attribution.
• If you challenge a resolution, do it because you think it's wrong, not to grief the author.

Privacy of others

• Don't post other people's private information — addresses, phone numbers, government IDs, private messages.
• Don't link to leaked databases or doxxing material.
• If you find a security issue with the site, report it via in-site message — don't post the exploit publicly.

Consequences

• First minor breach: a moderator note and the post is removed.
• Repeated or serious breach: account ban.
• Coordinated abuse, illegal content, or threats: immediate ban without warning.
• A ban removes your access. Your public posts may stay so other users' threads remain coherent, but they will be anonymised.

Refunds

Right now, this site does not sell anything for real money. Cred is earned, claimed, or staked — never bought. There is therefore nothing to refund. This section exists so the policy is in place when crypto-supported purchases are added.

Today: nothing to refund

• You do not pay us money to use the site.
• Cred is earned through gameplay or seeded by an admin during the early launch period. They are not for sale yet.
• Stakes you place on predictions are at risk inside the game. A losing stake is not refundable.
• Bounty contributions you make to other people's questions are not refundable once you have contributed.

Future: paid cred with cryptocurrency

If we add the ability to support the site with cryptocurrency in exchange for cred, the following will apply at that point:

• Cryptocurrency transactions are final once confirmed on-chain. We cannot reverse them.
• If a payment is sent to the wrong address or in the wrong currency, we cannot recover it.
• If our system received your payment but failed to credit your balance, we will credit it on request once the on-chain payment is verified.
• If a payment was made by an account that is later banned for fraud or abuse, the cred purchased with it may be revoked.

Statutory rights

Where local consumer-protection law gives you rights that override this policy (for example, a mandatory cooling-off period for digital purchases), those rights apply.

Contact

If you believe a cred credit is missing or incorrect, send an in-site message to the admin account at /messages/compose?to=inews_admin with the date and details.