Definitions

In short

• This page lists the words that mean the same thing in every one of our documents.
• We are Tillyard, which is an Ohio nonprofit corporation.
• A member is a student with a member account. A visitor has none. Trustees and sponsors have accounts of their own kinds and are neither members nor staff. Staff are the owner and people working under a paid contract. Members are never staff.
• A recent graduate is a person who completed a degree or a credit-bearing program at a listed college within the 24 months before joining.
• Confirmed by code means one thing: a code we sent to a mailbox was typed back to us. Where our documents or the site say "verified" or "verification", they mean that and nothing more.
• The Record has three kinds of item, and each says something different: approved (a title, decided by the editor), recorded (shown by our logs or confirmed by the people named), and self-reported (the member said so and nobody checked).
• A hold hides something while a person looks at it. A legal hold is a different thing: it stops records being deleted. A closing hold is a third thing: it stops an account's erasure from starting.
• A tip is a voluntary payment to Tillyard for a free service already used. The site's button calls it a donation. We cannot yet say whether it is tax-deductible, and it changes nobody's standing.
• A dispute is made through the dispute form. A chargeback is raised with a bank. A claim is a legal claim. Our documents keep the three apart.
• "May" describes a choice we have. "Aim" describes what we try to do. "Currently" describes how things work today and can change. "Will" is a commitment, and every commitment is listed in Schedule 1 of the Terms of Use.

If this summary and the full text below ever differ, the full text governs.

1 About this page

1.1 What it is for

Our documents were written to be read one at a time. Many of them use the same words. This page fixes what those words mean, so that a word means the same thing in the Terms of Use, the Privacy Notice, the Community Guidelines and every other document listed in section 1.4 of the Terms of Use.

1.2 How it fits with our other documents

• A word defined here has this meaning in every document, unless that document says that it is using the word differently for a stated purpose.
• A document may add words for its own subject. Those words keep the meaning that document gives them. Examples are "image material" in the Intimate-Image Removal Policy and "entrant" in the official rules of a round.
• Where a document repeats a definition from this page and the two ever differ, this page governs the meaning of the word. Section 37.5 of the Terms of Use sets the order among all our documents.
• A definition describes. It does not, by itself, give anyone a right or put anyone under a duty. Rights and duties come from the document that uses the word.

1.3 Names of places on the site

The names of the areas, features and titles are the ones the site uses today. We may rename any of them. A new name does not change the meaning of a document that used the old one.

2 Reading words

• May. When a document says we may do something, it describes something we are allowed to do and can choose not to do. It is not a promise that we do it in your case or in any case.
• Aim. When a document says we aim to do something, it describes what we try to do. It is not a commitment about a result or a time.
• Currently, at present, today. These describe how the site works on the date of the document. A number or a setting marked this way can change, and a change of that kind is not a change to the document's rules.
• Will. When a document uses the word "will" for something we do, we mean it as a commitment. The commitments are listed in Schedule 1 of the Terms of Use, so that all of them can be seen in one place.
• Statements of how the site works. A statement of how the site works, such as "we do not keep your date of birth" or "the site never fetches an address a member supplies", describes the site on the document's effective date. We mean it to be true on that date and we correct the document when the site changes. It is not a promise that the site will stay that way, and sections 26 and 27 of the Terms of Use apply to it. Four such statements are also commitments, and they are in Part B of Schedule 1.
• Including, such as, for example. These introduce examples and do not limit what comes before them.
• Day. A calendar day. Where a daily limit resets, it resets at 00:00 Coordinated Universal Time unless the site says otherwise.
• Month. A period in months runs from the starting event to the same date that many calendar months later.
• Business day. A weekday that is not a United States federal holiday, counted in Eastern time. The Copyright Policy uses this for the timetable the law sets.
• Term. One of the three parts of the year the site uses for counting: currently 1 January to 31 May, 1 June to 14 August, and 15 August to 31 December. A term here is a counting period. It is not an academic term at any college.
• In writing. Includes email and messages sent through the site, unless a document asks for something more.

3 Who is who

3.1 Us

• Tillyard is an Ohio nonprofit corporation. We, us, our and the company mean Tillyard.
• The service means the website at tillyard.org, every page and tool on it, the emails and notices we send in connection with it, and the public pages we host. The site and the platform mean the same thing. Different documents use different ones of these three words, and no difference is meant.
• The owner is the president, who runs Tillyard day to day. It is a name for a role: a nonprofit corporation has no owners, and its board of trustees oversees it.
• The editor is the member of staff who decides whether a paper is published in Tillyard Research and who approves or signs titles. At present the owner is the editor.
• Staff means the owner and any person who works for us under a paid, written contract and holds a staff account. At present the owner is the only member of staff. Members are never staff, and no member is given any power over another member's content or account, whatever title or history that member has.
• A moderator is a member of staff, other than the owner, whose staff account is limited to reading reports, placing and lifting holds, and the lighter decisions the Reporting, Enforcement and Appeals Policy describes. There is none at present.
• The backup person is a person under a paid, written agreement who covers the time-limited legal duties when the owner cannot be reached. The term is used in our internal documents.
• A provider is another company that handles information for us and on our instructions, such as the company that hosts the site. The Privacy Notice lists them by what they do.

3.2 You and other people

• A member is a person who holds an account.
• A visitor is anyone who opens a public page without signing in, for example a recruiter checking a record or a friend reading a paper.
• An outside confirmer is a person who is not a member and who confirms something a member did, through a confirmation link the member shared. The Service and Volunteering Terms call the same person the contact. An organizational address is an email address at an organization's own domain, as distinct from an address at a free mail provider.
• A tipper (a person who tips) is anyone who has used the service and leaves a tip, with or without an account. A payer is a person who makes any payment to us: a tip, or a larger payment arranged in writing under a signed letter. A sponsor is an organization that pays to be named as the sponsor of something under a signed sponsorship agreement. Our documents do not use "donor", "contributor" or "supporter" for any of them, because a payment to us is not a gift to a cause.
• A student, in our documents and on the site, is a member who told us at sign-up that they are a current undergraduate or graduate student of the college whose address they confirmed. We do not check enrolment with any college. A recent graduate is a person who completed a degree or a credit-bearing program at a listed college within the 24 months before joining. A person who joined as a student and has since finished or left stays a member on the same footing. In either case membership continues only while the yearly email check can be completed. Where a page says work was read by "students at other colleges", it means members whose confirmed address is at another college and who told us they were students or recent graduates.
• A person named on a page is someone who is not the member the page belongs to and who is named on it: a co-author, a teammate, an officer, an outside confirmer, or someone a member wrote about.
• A reporter is a person who makes a report. A requester is a person who sends a removal request.

3.3 The state of an account

• In good standing describes an account that is open and is not muted by us, paused, suspended, removed or closing.
• A new account is one that is less than seven days old (currently). New accounts have lower limits and cannot send links or contact details.
• Lapsed describes an account whose yearly college email check was not completed in time. A lapse is not a penalty and withdraws nothing.
• Behind describes an account whose holder has not yet agreed to an important change to a document they must accept. The account is limited until the member decides.
• Paused describes an account we, or a standing rule, have stopped from taking part while something is looked at. A pause is not a finding.
• Suspended describes an account a person on our staff has stopped from taking part for a set time as the outcome of a case.
• Removed describes an account we have ended because of conduct.
• Closing describes an account whose holder has asked to close it and which is in the closing period. Closed describes an account that has ended, whether the member closed it or we did. Erased describes a closed account after erasure has run.

4 Places and things on the site

4.1 The areas

The Shop, Tillyard Research, Pursuits, The Record, The Workbench, Notes and The Almanac are the names of areas of the service.

4.2 The Shop and Notes

• A room is one sitting of The Shop. A table is a place in a room where a few members sit together. A member who is Focusing hears nobody: no chat line is sent to them, any voice they were in ends, and everyone else sees a headphones icon by their name. Chat at a table is otherwise open.
• A pot is one shared timed stretch of work at a table, followed by a break.
• Table chat is what members at one table type to each other there. It reaches only that table.
• A Fifteen is a timed two-person conversation in The Shop that starts only if both people press start.
• A coffee ring is the short trace a member may choose to leave at a table for whoever sits there next. The Privacy Notice also calls it a trace.
• A favor is a small piece of help one member offers or asks for on the favor board. It earns nothing.
• A note is a private message between connected members. A thread is a conversation among several members, such as a booth's thread. In our documents message covers both, and conversation means a set of notes or thread messages among the same people.
• A nod is a wordless signal of interest from one member to another. Two nods in opposite directions connect the two members.
• Connected describes two members who have each taken a step that links them, such as exchanging nods, accepting an introduction or a favor, or taking a seat in the same booth. The Community Guidelines list the current routes. Only connected members can write to each other privately.
• A block stops two members from seeing or reaching each other. It works in both directions and the blocked member is not told. To mute someone is your own choice not to see what they write. A mute placed by us is a different thing (section 7.4).

4.3 Tillyard Research

• A paper is a piece of writing sent to Tillyard Research. A draft is a paper that has not been submitted. The desk is the writing area of Tillyard Research. The drafting record is what the desk keeps about how a draft was written, as the AI-Use Policy describes.
• An author is each person named on a paper's byline. The lead author submits it. A co-author is a member the lead author listed and who agreed to be listed.
• The reading pool is the open list of members who have chosen to be offered other members' work to read. Nobody is put on it, and anyone on it may decline any offer. Some documents call it the open pool. The Service and Volunteering Terms describe a readers' pool for outside links; it works on the same footing.
• A reader is a member who chose to join the reading pool and chose to read a particular paper or piece. A reader is a member like any other: a person with a confirmed college address who told us they are a student or recent graduate (section 3.2). A reader is not a member of staff, is not a scholar appointed to judge the work, and is not working for us. Our documents do not call readers volunteers, because what a reader does is the reader's own choice and is not work for us.
• A reading is what a reader returns: scores against the published rubric, reasons and source checks.
• To approve a paper is the editor's decision to publish it. To publish is to make it available on a public page of Tillyard Research.
• A correction is a visible, dated change that fixes a mistake. To withdraw a paper is for an author to take it out of consideration or, once published, to have it come down. To retract a paper is for the editor to take a published paper down.
• Readers' Selection is a list of papers published in a term, chosen by a published rule from the totals their readers gave. It is not running at present; the Editorial Policy of Tillyard Research, section 12, says how it would work if we open it.

4.4 Pursuits, tables, booths, organizations and service

• A track is one kind of activity on the Pursuits menu. It is a menu entry and nothing more: it is not a course, a program of study or a curriculum, it has no syllabus, and nothing is awarded for following one.
• A round is a time-limited call for entries with its own published official rules. An entrant is a member who has entered. An entry is what an entrant sends in. A finalist is an entrant whose entry was among the highest scored under the round's rules.
• A piece is a portfolio piece recorded through Pursuits. A look is a reader opening the piece or its link and typing what they found.
• The student exercise label is the fixed line printed on pages in fields that touch law, tax, medicine, engineering or investments. On a Pursuits page it currently reads "Student exercise. Not advice to anyone." On a project page it currently reads "A student exercise. Not advice on law, tax, medicine, engineering or investing." Both mean the same thing: the page is practice, and it is not advice to any person.
• A scheduled table is a table a member puts on the board in advance, on a subject and at a time they choose. A host is the member who put it there. A host is a member like any other and has no power over the people at the table. A guest is a member who takes a seat. A table series is a set of linked scheduled tables. It is not a class and nothing is awarded for attending.
• A hosting line is the recorded item that counts the scheduled tables a member hosted, taken from attendance logs. Table Host is a title the editor may sign for a term's hosting.
• A project is something a team of members is making. A booth is the project's place on the site: a reserved table, a thread and a ledger. A seat is a member's place on a project. The lead is the member who opened the project, or the member it was later handed to. The ledger is the booth's log of working sessions and done lines. A counted session is a session the ledger counts (currently two or more teammates seated for twenty minutes in the reserved time). A part is one of the fixed kinds of contribution a teammate can claim and others can confirm. A card is a Help Wanted card. A venture is a project its team has said may become a business.
• An entry in the organizations register is the record of a real student organization at a college. Its roster is the list of members who joined it. An officer is a member whose role in the organization another officer has confirmed. A standing table is a regular table an entry keeps in The Shop.
• Service means unpaid work for a registered charity, a public body or an open project, arranged by the member with that outside body and recorded here. A help table is a table at which a member helps other members with a subject.

4.5 The Workbench and The Almanac

• The Workbench is the set of résumé tools that run in your browser. An account copy is a copy of Workbench work that a member chose to keep on our servers. The résumé swap is an exchange of feedback between two members who each chose to take part.
• The Almanac is the collection of guides, templates, deadlines and links to other people's listings.

5 Content and conduct

• Content means text and other material that someone puts into the service: a paper, a note, a chat line, a profile, a project description, an answer, a reading, a comment. Your content is content you put in. Some documents say member content or material. They mean the same thing.
• Member information means anything that identifies or describes a member: name, college, email address, profile details, Record, connections, and when or where they were present on the service.
• Public means visible to anyone on the web without signing in. A public page is a page that can be opened without signing in. Signed-in members means people with an account who are signed in. Something signed-in members can see is not public, though it is seen by people you may not know.
• Automated means means any software that acts on the service without a person choosing each action at the time, including bots, scripts, crawlers, scrapers and AI agents.
• Screening means the automated safety check that member-written text goes through. It can hold an item. It never decides a case.
• A standing rule is a rule the service applies by itself, without waiting for a person. Something settled by rule was decided that way and is recorded as such.

6 The Record

6.1 The Record and its pages

• The Record is a member's set of items. An item (or Record item) is one thing the member did. A record page is the page for one item, at an address beginning tillyard.org/r/.
• The basis, shown on a page under the words How we know, is the sentence that says exactly who or what is the source of the record.
• A code is the ten-character code that comes with an item, so that the item can be looked up from paper.
• The public page is a member's optional profile page. The directory is the optional name search of members who chose to be listed.
• Verified and verification, wherever our documents or the site use them, mean confirmed by code: we sent a code to a mailbox and the code was typed back to us. That shows that someone could read mail at that address on that day. It does not show enrolment, age, identity, a degree or a right to work, and it is not a check of anything else on a page. The badge beside a member's name currently reads "Verified .edu email, checked ", and that is all it means.

6.2 The three kinds of item

One kind never becomes another by editing, sharing or waiting.

6.3 Titles and perks

• A title is an approved item, such as Published Author. The editor's mark is the design on a record page that shows the editor approved or signed the item.
• A perk is a hospitality mark for taking part: a stamp, a mug on the shelf, a postmark, a founding number. Some documents call a perk a keepsake, and the site also says house mark. They mean the same thing. A perk is not an item on The Record, has no cash value, and never turns into a title.
• A participation line is a count of taking part, shown apart from The Record, with no page.
• A skill on a profile is a link to the recorded items that involved it. It is never an item and never a rating.

6.4 Confirmation

A confirmation is a statement by someone other than the member that they saw, read or took part in what an item describes. A confirmation is that person's statement and not ours. An outside confirmation is one given by an outside confirmer.

6.5 Status, and what is left when an item goes

• Status is the word on a record page that says whether the record stands on the day the page is opened.
• Active means the record stands.
• No longer listed means the page is not being shown. The member may have stopped sharing it, the account may be paused, closing or closed, or the item may be on hold. This status never says which, and it says nothing either way about the record.
• Withdrawn means the record no longer stands. The member, the area the record came from, or staff withdrew it. The page gives the month and never who withdrew it or why.
• Nothing is listed here is what an address or a code answers when no item has it, or when a tombstone has passed its time.
• Three notes can appear on a page that still stands. Disputed means someone entitled to question a line of the record has done so and it has not been settled; inside a booth the page words for the same thing are "in question". Link changed since it was read means an outside link was edited after a reader read it. Confirmation withdrawn means a confirmer took a confirmation back.
• A tombstone is the short, nameless page left at an address after an item, a page or a paper has gone, so that an old link says something true and does not simply fail.

6.6 Credential and related words

Our software keeps titles in a list it calls the credentials ledger and perks in a separate perks ledger. Those are names for two lists that are never mixed. In our documents, credential is used only for that software name, for something issued by another body (which the page shows as "member reports holding"), and to say what a record is not. A title states a fact that the editor approved. It is not a qualification, and nothing on The Record is evidence of skill.

7 Safety, cases and decisions

7.1 Reports and cases

• A report tells us, through a report control or a form, about content or conduct that someone thinks breaks our rules or the law.
• A removal request is a request to take something down under a legal process: an intimate image shared without consent, or a copyright notice. A dispute tells us, through the dispute form or one of the controls beside a record, that something the service shows or did is wrong.
• A case is the file staff keep when something is reported, flagged by screening, held, disputed, requested for removal or appealed.
• A ticket is the reference a person is given for a dispute, a removal request or a report made from outside an account. The status page is where a ticket can be checked.
• An evidence packet is the fixed copy the system makes when a report is filed: the reported item, its surroundings, and the facts listed in the Messaging and Monitoring Notice.
• The staff action log is our append-only record of what staff and standing rules did. It holds identifiers and reason keys, never names, email addresses or member text. It cannot be edited or pruned, including by the owner, and it is kept for as long as Tillyard operates. Our software and internal documents also call it the audit log.

7.2 Holds

• A hold hides an item from everyone except its author while a person looks at it. A hold deletes nothing, adds no strike and is not a finding that a rule was broken.
• A strict hold hides the item from its author too. It is used for material in an intimate-image removal request and in child-safety matters.
• A legal hold is something else. It is a written decision to keep specific records past their normal time because of a legal claim, an investigation or a legal duty. It hides nothing and shows nothing. The Data Retention Schedule sets out how it works.
• A closing hold is a fourth thing. It stops an account's erasure from starting, or keeps particular records beyond their normal time, because a legal hold, a child-safety or age matter, or an open urgent case covers the account. It hides nothing. The Account Deletion and Data Export Policy, section 6, sets out when one applies. A closure that waits for this reason is described as on hold.

7.3 Decisions

• A decision is a choice made by a person on our staff about content, a record or an account. Software may hold an item, stop your table chat for one visit, or pause an account. Only a person gives a notice, the 24-hour mute, a suspension or a removal.
• A notice is the message that tells a member what was decided, about which item and under which rule. A notice sent as the outcome of a case is also the formal warning.
• A strike is the private mark a decision leaves against an account when the outcome is more than "no action". A strike counts for 12 months (currently) and is never shown publicly. Copyright strikes are counted separately under the Copyright Policy.
• An appeal is a member's request that a decision about their content, record or account be looked at again. The site calls it a second look. The two words mean the same thing. There is one for each decision.

7.4 What can happen to an account

• A mute placed by us stops a member from writing in table chat, Notes, threads and the house question for a short time (currently 24 hours). It is decided by a person. It is not the same as table chat being switched off for the rest of one visit, which software does after three lines in that visit were stopped by the word filter.
• A restriction closes one feature to a member, such as the reading pool or hosting.
• A pause, a suspension and a removal are described in section 3.3.

8 Information and deletion

• Personal information means information that identifies a person or could reasonably be linked to one. A scrambled copy of an identifier still counts.
• A keyed hash is a one-way scramble made with a secret key that only our servers hold. It lets us recognise the same value again without storing the value. A keyed hash of an email address or an IP address is still personal information.
• To delete a record is to remove it from the live database. To erase an account is to delete or blank everything about it that our schedule does not keep. To blank a record is to empty its personal fields while leaving the row in place so that other records still make sense. Reduced to a count means only a total is kept, with nothing that identifies anyone.
• The closing period is the time between a member asking to close an account and erasure starting (currently 14 days), during which the member can change their mind.
• A departure record is the record, made of identifiers and dates, that shows erasure ran.
• An export is the copy of a member's own data that the member can take from their account.
• A consent record is the record of each agreement or permission a member gave: the wording version, the time, and any withdrawal.
• The data inventory is the list, kept by the software itself, of every kind of personal information each part of the site stores, why, and for how long.
• A backup is a copy of the database kept for recovery from a failure. The Privacy Notice, section 13, says how backups are made and kept.

9 Money

• A tip is a voluntary, one-time payment to Tillyard for a free service the person has already used. The site's button calls it a donation. We cannot yet say whether it is tax-deductible, and it does not change anyone's standing.
• A larger payment (also called a larger tip) is a voluntary payment by an individual who has used the service, arranged in writing under a signed letter and paid against an invoice. It gives no ownership, no return and no say. Earlier drafts called it a "larger contribution"; our documents no longer use that word for money.
• A sponsorship is a payment by a sponsor under a signed sponsorship agreement in exchange for being named as a sponsor. It gives nothing else.
• A refund returns a payment to the payment method it came from. A chargeback (also called a bank dispute) is a challenge to a payment that a payer raises with their bank or card issuer and not with us.
• Three words that are easily confused. A dispute tells us, through the dispute form, that something the service shows or did is wrong (section 7.1). A chargeback is raised with a bank. A claim is a legal claim that a person might bring against us, or we against them, under section 32 of the Terms of Use.
• General revenue means Tillyard's ordinary income, which it uses for its nonprofit purposes as its board decides.

10 Changes to this document

The version number and effective date are at the top, and earlier versions stay available. Adding a word, or making a definition clearer without changing what any document means, may take effect when published. A change that alters the meaning of a document a member has agreed to is treated as a change to that document, under section 33 of the Terms of Use.

11 Contact

• Questions about what a word in our documents means: support@tillyard.org
• Legal notices: legal@tillyard.org
• Post: Tillyard, 10602 York Rd SW, Etna, Ohio 43062

Questions about this document

support@tillyard.org

Legal notices

legal@tillyard.org

By post

10602 York Rd SW, Etna, Ohio 43062

For anything else, see where to send what.

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