Terms of Service

1. Acceptance of Terms

By accessing and using ReasonSmith ("the Service"), you agree to be bound by these Terms of Service. If you do not agree to these terms, please do not use the Service.

2. Description of Service

ReasonSmith is a platform for structured public discourse that combines editorial discipline with collaborative features. The Service provides tools for creating, publishing, and discussing well-sourced arguments with transparent revision history, AI-powered good-faith scoring, Chicago-style citation management, and rich text editing capabilities.

3. User Accounts and Authentication

To access certain features of the Service, you must create an account. We support multiple authentication methods including GitHub OAuth, Google OAuth, magic link email authentication, and email/password authentication.

You are responsible for:

• Maintaining the confidentiality of your account credentials
• All activities that occur under your account
• Notifying us immediately of any unauthorized use of your account
• Providing accurate and current information during registration
• Securing any third-party OAuth accounts (GitHub, Google) linked to your account

4. User Roles and Permissions

ReasonSmith operates with a three-tier role system:

• User: Standard account with ability to create discussions, post comments, and receive monthly analysis credits
• Site Manager: Elevated privileges including content curation, dispute management, featured content selection, and moderation capabilities
• Admin: Complete system control including user management, unlimited analysis credits, and full platform administration

Role assignments are at the sole discretion of ReasonSmith. Abuse of elevated privileges may result in role revocation or account termination.

5. Content Guidelines and Requirements

When using ReasonSmith, you agree to:

• Provide accurate citations in Chicago style format for all claims and sources referenced
• Engage in good-faith discourse and avoid hostile or inflammatory language
• Respect intellectual property rights and properly attribute sources
• Use proper formatting through our rich text editor without attempting to inject malicious code
• Not post content that violates our Community Guidelines
• Not use the Service for spam, harassment, or malicious purposes
• Ensure anonymous posts, if used, still comply with all content guidelines

All content is subject to HTML sanitization for security purposes. Certain HTML tags and attributes may be stripped from your content.

6. Content Ownership and License

You retain ownership of content you create on ReasonSmith. By posting content, you grant ReasonSmith a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free license to use, display, and distribute your content on the platform.

Published discussions and posts may be featured, curated, or showcased by our editorial team through the "Editor's Desk" program. Featured content selection requires author approval. You can delete your content at any time, though published versions may remain in archives for editorial integrity and version history.

7. Drafts and Auto-Save

ReasonSmith automatically saves your draft content both locally in your browser's storage and on our servers. Draft content is private until you choose to publish it. Local draft data may persist in your browser even after you close the application.

We retain draft content for a reasonable period to allow you to recover your work. You may delete drafts at any time through the Service interface.

8. Editorial Moderation and Featured Content

ReasonSmith uses a combination of AI-assisted scoring and human editorial judgment to evaluate content quality and good-faith participation. We reserve the right to:

• Review and moderate user-generated content
• Remove content that violates these Terms or our Community Guidelines
• Suspend or terminate accounts for repeated violations
• Feature or curate content based on editorial criteria
• Require author approval before featuring content on the Editor's Desk

Featured content ("Editor's Desk picks") are selected by site managers and require explicit author approval before publication. Authors may revoke approval at any time, resulting in removal from featured status.

9. Good-Faith Scoring System

Our AI-assisted good-faith scoring system analyzes posts for constructive discourse, proper sourcing, and civil tone using artificial intelligence providers including Anthropic Claude and OpenAI. The system:

• Performs heuristic pre-checks for content quality
• Evaluates claims, arguments, logical fallacies, and tone
• Assigns scores on a 0-1 scale (hostile → questionable → neutral → constructive → exemplary)
• Provides detailed analysis including claim assessment and improvement suggestions
• May be reviewed and adjusted by editorial staff

Scores are advisory and subject to editorial review. Consistently low scores may affect your ability to participate fully in the platform. Analysis requires credits (see Section 10).

10. Analysis Credits System

Monthly Credits

All standard users receive a monthly allocation of analysis credits that reset at the beginning of each calendar month. These credits are used to perform good-faith analysis on your content before publishing.

Purchased Credits

When monthly credits are exhausted, you may purchase additional credits. Purchased credits:

• Do not expire
• Are consumed only after monthly credits are exhausted
• Are non-refundable once used for analysis
• Cannot be transferred between accounts
• Remain with your account even after monthly credits reset

Unlimited Access

Site managers and administrators have unlimited analysis credits and are not subject to monthly limits or credit consumption.

Credit Policy

Credits are consumed when you request AI-powered good-faith analysis. Once analysis begins, the credit is considered used regardless of whether you publish the content. ReasonSmith reserves the right to adjust credit allocations, pricing, and policies with reasonable notice to users.

11. Citation Network and Data Visualization

Citations you create may be stored in a graph database (Neo4j) to enable network visualization showing relationships between discussions, arguments, and sources. This data helps users understand how ideas connect across the platform.

Citation data is publicly accessible when associated with published content. You acknowledge that citation relationships may persist in the network even if you delete individual discussions or posts.

12. Anonymous Posting

You may choose to post discussions and comments anonymously. Anonymous content:

• Does not display your display name or profile information publicly
• Is still subject to all content guidelines and moderation policies
• May be linked to your account for moderation and abuse prevention purposes
• Can be de-anonymized by administrators if required for legal compliance or safety
• Must still meet good-faith and citation requirements

Anonymity is not guaranteed in cases of legal obligations, Terms violations, or safety concerns.

13. Prohibited Uses

You may not use ReasonSmith to:

• Violate any applicable laws or regulations
• Infringe on intellectual property rights
• Harass, threaten, or harm other users
• Spread misinformation or deliberately misleading content
• Fabricate or misrepresent citations and sources
• Attempt to gain unauthorized access to the Service or other users' accounts
• Interfere with the proper functioning of the Service
• Manipulate good-faith scores or abuse the credits system
• Submit malicious code or attempt to bypass content sanitization
• Create multiple accounts to circumvent credit limits or moderation actions

14. Third-Party Services

ReasonSmith integrates with third-party services including but not limited to:

• GitHub and Google for OAuth authentication
• Anthropic Claude and OpenAI for AI-powered content analysis
• Nhost for backend infrastructure and database hosting
• Vercel for frontend hosting and analytics
• Neo4j for citation network visualization

Your use of these services through ReasonSmith is subject to their respective terms of service and privacy policies. We are not responsible for the practices or policies of third-party services.

15. Fees and Payments

While basic access to ReasonSmith is free, certain features may require payment:

• Purchased analysis credits
• Future premium features or subscriptions

All fees are stated in U.S. dollars unless otherwise specified. Payments are processed through secure third-party payment processors. By making a purchase, you agree to provide accurate payment information and authorize us to charge your payment method.

Refunds for purchased credits are handled on a case-by-case basis and are generally not provided for credits already consumed through analysis.

16. Disclaimer of Warranties

ReasonSmith is provided "as is" without warranties of any kind, either express or implied. We do not guarantee that the Service will be uninterrupted, secure, or error-free. We do not warrant the accuracy of AI-generated good-faith scores or analysis.

17. Limitation of Liability

To the maximum extent permitted by law, ReasonSmith shall not be liable for any indirect, incidental, special, consequential, or punitive damages arising from your use of the Service, including but not limited to:

• Loss of data or content
• Errors in good-faith scoring or AI analysis
• Disputes arising from featured content or editorial decisions
• Loss of purchased credits due to account termination
• Issues arising from third-party service integrations

18. Changes to Terms

We reserve the right to modify these Terms at any time. We will notify users of significant changes via email or through the Service. Continued use of the Service after changes constitutes acceptance of the modified Terms.

Material changes affecting purchased credits or paid features will be communicated at least 30 days in advance when possible.

19. Termination

We may terminate or suspend your account at any time for violation of these Terms, including but not limited to repeated low good-faith scores, content guideline violations, or abuse of the credits system.

You may terminate your account at any time by contacting us. Upon termination:

• Your right to use the Service will immediately cease
• Published content may remain in archives
• Unused purchased credits will be forfeited without refund
• Draft content will be deleted after a reasonable grace period

20. Intellectual Property

The ReasonSmith name, logo, and all related marks are trademarks of ReasonSmith Media. The Service's software, design, and underlying technology are protected by copyright, trademark, and other intellectual property laws.

You may not copy, modify, distribute, or reverse engineer any part of the Service without our explicit written permission.

21. Governing Law and Disputes

These Terms shall be governed by and construed in accordance with the laws of the United States and the State of [Your State], without regard to conflict of law principles.

Any disputes arising from these Terms or your use of the Service shall be resolved through binding arbitration, except where prohibited by law.

22. Contact

For questions about these Terms of Service, please contact us at legal@reasonsmith.com.