The basics
As a general rule, we will do our best to protect your privacy, to provide accurate information, and to generally be good humans. And if you also use our website as generally good humans, this site should work just dandy, and cause you no headaches. But for the sake of clarity, here are some guiding principles:
Copyrights
The owners and administrators of Herding Bobcats (known on the site as “Steph” and “Spud”) hold the copyright in all text and images on this site.
Exceptions: Herding Bobcats is a WordPress site, using a WordPress theme, and running on a Bluehost platform. Anything that belongs to them, belongs to them. Sometimes we may use text, quotes, or images from other sources. These will be cited, acknowledging that specific copyright vests with them.
International Intellectual Property laws allow for “fair use” meaning you can quote from us, as long as you cite us. This does not permit you to copy entire articles or the whole website. Photographs tend to be more personal, and it’s difficult to take a portion of a photo, so if you want to copy or reuse any of our images, please contact us, first. Don’t just take it and cite it and assume that will be okay. It won’t.
Liability
We can’t foresee any way that you could be hurt or injured by our site. Take any advice as informational, sometimes educational, other times entertainment. It is not, and should not, be taken as legal or binding advice. Do your own due diligence before starting exercise, eating a recipe we suggest, or doing anything else as a result of this site. Don’t do anything dumb, such as read this site while driving a car. If you do decide to sue us we reserve the right to have the hearings take place in New Zealand, because we trust that legal system more than the one in the United States.
Compensation
At the current moment, this website costs us money, it doesn’t earn us money. While we welcome contributions, at this stage the only compensation will be a big “thank you” and the ability for you to reference us on your resume. We hope you’ll make a name for yourself and become a rich person who is kind and good. In the future, we hope to hire a team of writers. If that happens, anyone who provided us contributions for free will not be retroactively compensated for those contributions. Not because we won’t want to pay you, but because it would be an accounting nightmare. Please don’t subject us to that.
Comments
Where we allow comments, we will aim to review these before they are posted. Any text that screams “bot” will be deleted. We will use our discretion on which comments are posted. We reserve the right to reject any comment we perceive to be overtly rude or antagonistic, which might include comments with offensive language. In saying that, we may allow comments that we perceive to invoke discussion, even if they are in some way argumentative. Anything blatantly racist, xenophobic, homophobic, or that we otherwise perceive as “hate speech” will absolutely be removed/rejected, and if we can block you from our site, we will.
Heads up
“Steph” and “Spud” are former lawyers. We both studied Intellectual Property as electives at law school. Don’t assume we don’t know the law. And don’t assume we won’t care if you breach it. And don’t assume that we won’t follow up (we might, we might not, it will depend on the situation). And don’t assume that you can get away with it because you’re rich and powerful. We’re actually far more likely to go after you than some destitute kid in Norway.
Cookies
The following is the “suggested text” of Bluehost/Wordpress, so we assume this is the situation. We actually have no idea. The surface of our site collects nothing and uses nothing. To the best of our knowledge Bluehost/Wordpress do not use anyone’s information in nefarious ways, but it’s always better to guard your safety and privacy. Steph is a cookie rejector from way back, so by all means, any time the site asks if you’re okay with cookies, feel free to “reject all”. Our site should continue to work just fine:
If you leave a comment on our site you may opt-in to saving your name, email address and website in cookies. These are for your convenience so that you do not have to fill in your details again when you leave another comment. These cookies will last for one year.
If you visit our login page, we will set a temporary cookie to determine if your browser accepts cookies. This cookie contains no personal data and is discarded when you close your browser.
When you log in, we will also set up several cookies to save your login information and your screen display choices. Login cookies last for two days, and screen options cookies last for a year. If you select “Remember Me”, your login will persist for two weeks. If you log out of your account, the login cookies will be removed.
If you edit or publish an article, an additional cookie will be saved in your browser. This cookie includes no personal data and simply indicates the post ID of the article you just edited. It expires after 1 day.
More “suggested text” that we will assume is accurate:
Embedded content from other websites
Articles on this site may include embedded content (e.g. videos, images, articles, etc.). Embedded content from other websites behaves in the exact same way as if the visitor has visited the other website.
These websites may collect data about you, use cookies, embed additional third-party tracking, and monitor your interaction with that embedded content, including tracking your interaction with the embedded content if you have an account and are logged in to that website.
Who we share your data with
If you request a password reset, your IP address will be included in the reset email.
How long we retain your data
If you leave a comment, the comment and its metadata are retained indefinitely. This is so we can recognize and approve any follow-up comments automatically instead of holding them in a moderation queue.
For users that register on our website (if any), we also store the personal information they provide in their user profile. All users can see, edit, or delete their personal information at any time (except they cannot change their username). Website administrators can also see and edit that information.
What rights you have over your data
If you have an account on this site, or have left comments, you can request to receive an exported file of the personal data we hold about you, including any data you have provided to us. You can also request that we erase any personal data we hold about you. This does not include any data we are obliged to keep for administrative, legal, or security purposes.
Where your data is sent
Visitor comments may be checked through an automated spam detection service.