Terms
Who we are
Shoalyard is run by Quiver Gearworks, LLC, a Delaware limited liability company (“we”). Shoalyard builds a first-hand picture of how work really works, from conversations with the people who do it, and shows each person what others in similar spots do about it.
Talking with our AI
- You're talking with an AI, not a person. It can be wrong. Nothing it says is legal, medical, financial or other professional advice.
- Describe your own work, honestly. Please don't share other people's names or contact details, or anything you've promised your employer or anyone else to keep confidential.
- Don't use Shoalyard to harass anyone, to spam, or to try to make the AI do something it shouldn't.
What you share is your responsibility
You're responsible for what you share on Shoalyard: in conversations, answers, the reasons you give and anything else you add. Before you share something, make sure you're allowed to. Don't share anything confidential or proprietary, such as deal terms, client or portfolio information, non-public numbers or trade secrets, and don't share anything your employer's policies, your contracts or the law don't let you share. We don't show your name or employer, and we take out details that could identify people, but that doesn't make it safe to share something you aren't allowed to. If you're unsure, leave it out or describe it in general terms. We may remove anything that looks confidential, and you can ask us to remove something you shared.
What we do with what you share
You keep ownership of your words. You give us permission to use what you share to run Shoalyard, which means we may:
- summarize and analyze it, and connect it with what others in similar situations have shared;
- show it to others only in ways that can't identify you: our own summaries, and numbers and comparisons once enough people are in them. Never with your name or firm;
- share pooled, anonymous findings with organizations interested in your field, such as trade groups, companies and researchers;
- ask others the questions you want answered, and reach out to groups where people like you gather. We never say who suggested a contact.
When you talk with Shoalyard, you give us a license to use what you tell us, including short quotes in your own words, on Shoalyard's pages. A quote is shown only with broad details like your seniority and kind of firm, never your name or employer, and with anything that could identify you taken out. You can delete your story at any time from your page, or delete your account. We then delete the conversation and anything that could identify you. Topic pages that already include what you said, quotes among them, stay as they are; they never show your handle, name or employer.
Signing up and confirming your work
Anyone can read Shoalyard's public pages. To talk with us or follow a shoal you need an account: your email, then a link we send you. Your account keeps your conversations and lets us tell you when someone answers your question. To answer in a shoal, you confirm the work you do. We check it, for example with a work email, a public license lookup, a site you run, your GitHub, or a license number, website or profile you send us to look at by hand. We keep the result and when we checked, plus a one-way fingerprint of what confirmed you, so the same email, license, site or account can't confirm a second account. If you confirm with a work email, we also keep your employer's domain, privately, so your answers stay out of results about that company's tools and its competitors'; it's never shown to anyone else. Otherwise we don't keep what you sent.
One person, one say, and removal
Results on Shoalyard are only worth something if they come from real people who do the work, each with one say. So each person may have one account. We may remove an account, at our discretion, for fake or duplicate accounts, made-up answers, attempts to steer a result, or other abuse; when we do, that account's answers and quotes are taken out of every result. Members whose answers hold up over time may be invited to paid research questions; any such invitation comes with its own terms.
What we can't promise
We do our best to find people like you and to reach out on your behalf, but we can't promise that anyone will answer, how many people will join, or when. Shoalyard is provided as it is, and to the extent the law allows, we aren't liable for losses that come from using it.
Paid interviews
If we invite you to a paid interview, it will come with its own terms, which you'll see before you agree to anything.
Changes and ending
We may change these terms. If a change matters, we'll say so on the site, and by email if you've signed up. You can stop using Shoalyard and delete your story at any time. We may close accounts that break these terms. These terms are governed by the laws of the State of Delaware.
Contact
Questions about these terms: auth@quiver.fyi.