Terms and Conditions: Rong Archive
Version: 1.0
Last Updated: June 13, 2026
Welcome to Rong Archive. By accessing or using this platform, you agree to these Terms and Conditions. If you do not agree, please do not use the platform.
1. About Rong Archive
Rong Archive is a community-driven digital archive dedicated to the preservation, documentation, and sharing of the Lepcha language (Róng ríng), culture, oral traditions, and related knowledge. The platform allows registered users to contribute words, translations, pronunciations, cultural notes, and other language-related information for review and inclusion in the archive.
2. Eligibility
You must meet the minimum age required to use online services under the laws of your country of residence, and in any event be at least 13 years old to use Rong Archive. By creating an account, you represent that:
- The information you provide is accurate.
- You have the legal right to submit the content you contribute.
- You will comply with these Terms and all applicable laws.
3. User Contributions & Media Warranties
Users may contribute text (words, definitions, translations, examples, cultural notes) and multimedia (audio recordings, images, scans). You are entirely responsible for the accuracy and legality of any content you submit.
If your contributions include multimedia files—such as audio recordings of pronunciations, photographs, or digital scans of historical manuscripts—you warrant that you have obtained explicit, informed consent from the speaker, creator, or original holder of that knowledge, or that the material is entirely in the public domain.
You agree not to submit content that:
- Is false, malicious, or intentionally misleading.
- Infringes upon copyright, trademark, or intellectual property rights.
- Contains unlawful, abusive, defamatory, or hateful material.
- Contains spam, malicious code, or harmful links.
- Violates the personal privacy of others.
4. Contribution Review and Moderation
All contributions may go through a moderation queue before public publication. Rong Archive reserves the right to approve, reject, merge, or edit submissions for clarity, formatting, orthographic consistency, or grammatical accuracy. Moderation decisions are made in good faith to protect the quality and integrity of the archive.
5. Intellectual Property & Differentiated Licensing
Contributors retain ownership of their original contributions. The licenses and permissions granted below allow Rong Archive to preserve, display, and share contributed materials according to these Terms. Rong Archive applies a split-licensing model to respect the difference between shared linguistic data and personal or cultural multimedia:
Textual Linguistic Contributions
By submitting words, definitions, translations, and usage examples, you agree that these textual entries will be licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0) license. This ensures foundational language data remains open for community education, app development, and linguistic research.
Multimedia Contributions
By uploading audio pronunciations, photos, or manuscript scans, you grant Rong Archive a perpetual, worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free license to host, preserve, stream, and display the media as part of the platform's preservation mission. Ownership and underlying rights remain with the contributor or rights holder. Except where explicitly stated otherwise by the contributor, multimedia contributions are not automatically licensed for public reuse, redistribution, or commercial use by third parties.
6. Archive Preservation Clause
Because Rong Archive serves as a permanent historical record, accepted linguistic and cultural contributions may be retained indefinitely to preserve the linguistic integrity, translation history, and educational value of the archive.
If you choose to delete your account, your personal profile data will be permanently removed or anonymized. However, the data you contributed (dictionary text, accepted audio pronunciations) will remain part of the collective cultural record to maintain archive stability. Rong Archive may remove, restrict, anonymize, or modify archived content where required by law, court order, verified intellectual property claims, privacy concerns, or determinations regarding culturally sensitive material.
7. Research & Educational Use
Rong Archive encourages responsible educational, linguistic, and research use of publicly available archive content, subject to the applicable licenses and any restrictions placed on culturally sensitive material. The platform functions as a public resource built to assist students, elders, researchers, and developers in keeping the Lepcha language active and accessible.
8. Platform Security & Usage Restrictions
The design, interface, software structure, branding, and curated database layout of Rong Archive are protected by intellectual property laws. Users may not:
- Attempt unauthorized access to system databases, source code, or user profiles.
- Circumvent security controls, rate limits, or API restrictions.
- Interfere with the stable, proper operation of the platform.
- Scrape or copy massive portions of the database structure for commercial distribution outside the scope of individual CC BY-SA text allowances.
9. Sensitive Cultural Material & Traditional Knowledge
Rong Archive recognizes that certain words, oral histories, rituals, recordings, imagery, and sacred knowledge hold deep cosmological and private significance within the Lepcha community.
The platform reserves the right to restrict, hide, anonymize, or limit public access to content determined to be sacred, culturally sensitive, private, or inappropriate for unrestricted global distribution. Rong Archive may review and restrict content where legitimate concerns are raised regarding traditional cultural expressions, community-owned knowledge, or culturally sensitive heritage, even where formal legal copyright ownership is unclear. Decisions regarding culturally sensitive material may be informed by community representatives, cultural organizations, researchers, elders, or other knowledgeable stakeholders where appropriate.
10. Copyright & Heritage Takedown Process
Rong Archive respects intellectual property and community heritage rights. If you believe that any content hosted on this platform infringes upon a copyright, related rights, traditional cultural expressions, or other legitimate cultural heritage interests that you legally hold or represent, please send a formal request to contact@rong-archive.org. Your request must include:
- A direct link (URL) to the specific material.
- Proof of ownership or clear authorization to act on behalf of the owner or cultural group.
- Your direct contact details.
Upon receipt, the platform will promptly investigate and remove, gate, or modify any verified infringing or wrongfully exposed material.
11. Account Suspension and Termination
Rong Archive reserves the right to suspend or terminate user accounts, or restrict platform access, without prior notice, for users who repeatedly violate these Terms, systematically abuse the moderation queue, upload intentionally corrupted or misleading data, or engage in harassment or disruptive behavior against other community members.
12. Availability of Service
Rong Archive is provided on an "as is" and "as available" basis. While we strive for permanent data durability and system stability, we do not guarantee continuous, uninterrupted up-time, error-free operation, or the permanent preservation of all submitted content against server failures or technical variables beyond our control.
13. Limitation of Liability & No Warranty of Accuracy
Because the platform contains community-contributed material, we do not guarantee that every entry is complete, accurate, current, authoritative, or free from error. Language is fluid, and dialectal variations exist; users rely on the information contained within the archive at their own risk. To the maximum extent permitted by law, Rong Archive and its operators shall not be liable for user-generated text/audio content, translation errors, service interruptions, data loss, or any indirect or consequential damages arising from your use of the platform.
14. Governing Law & Jurisdiction
These Terms shall be governed by, construed, and enforced in accordance with the laws of India. Any legal disputes or actions arising from the use of this platform shall be subject exclusively to the jurisdiction of the courts of Sikkim, India.
15. Privacy Policy Reference
Your use of Rong Archive is also governed by our Privacy Policy, which details how we collect, handle, secure, or anonymize your personal information. By agreeing to these Terms, you acknowledge you have reviewed and understood our privacy practices.
16. Changes to These Terms & Contact Information
We may update these Terms from time to time to reflect structural changes to the platform or evolving cultural data policies. Continued use of the platform after changes become effective constitutes acceptance of the revised Terms.
Questions or notices regarding these Terms can be sent directly to the development and administrative team at contact@rong-archive.org.