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Do not create more than one account.
Users are allowed one account per lifetime. If your account is disabled, contact staff in #what.cd-disabled on IRC.
Do not trade, sell, give away, or offer accounts.
If you no longer wish to use your account, send a Staff PM and request that your account be disabled.
Do not share accounts.
Accounts are for personal use only. Granting access to your account in any way (e.g., shared login details, external programs) is prohibited. Invite friends or direct them to the IRC Interview.
Do not invite bad users.
You are responsible for your invitees. You will not be punished if your invitees fail to maintain required share ratios, but invitees who break golden rules will place your invite privileges and account at risk.
Do not trade, sell, publicly give away, or publicly offer invites.
Invites should only be given to people you know and trust. There is one exception to this rule: invites may also be offered in class-restricted forums on other invitation-only private trackers where official What.CD recruitment threads don't already exist. Responding to public invite requests may place your account or invites privileges at risk.
Do not request invites or accounts.
Requesting invites to—or accounts on—What.CD or other trackers is prohibited. Invites may be offered, but not requested, in the Invites Forum (restricted to the Power User Class and above). You may request invites by messaging users only when they have offered them in the Invites Forum. Unsolicited invite requests, even by private message, are prohibited.
Do not engage in ratio manipulation.
Transferring buffer—or increasing your buffer—through unintended uses of the BitTorrent protocol or site features (e.g., Request Abuse) constitutes ratio manipulation. When in doubt, send a Staff PM asking for more information.
Do not report incorrect data to the tracker (i.e., cheating).
Reporting incorrect data to the tracker constitutes cheating, whether it is accomplished through the use of a modified "cheat client" or through manipulation of an approved client.
Do not use unapproved clients.
Your client must be found on the Client Whitelist. You must not use clients that have been modified in any way. Developers interested in testing unstable clients must first receive staff approval.
Do not modify What.CD .torrent files.
Embedding non-What.CD announce URLs in What.CD .torrents is prohibited. Doing so causes false data to be reported and will be interpreted as cheating. This applies to standalone .torrent files and .torrent files that have been loaded into a client.
Do not share .torrent files or your passkey.
Embedded in each What.CD .torrent file is an announce URL containing your personal passkey. Passkeys enable users to report stats to the tracker.
Do not blackmail, threaten, or expose fellow users.
Exposing or threatening to expose private information about users for any reason is prohibited. Private information includes but is not limited to personally identifying information (e.g., names, records, biographical details, photos). Information that hasn't been openly volunteered by a user should not be discussed or shared without permission. This includes private information collected via investigations into openly volunteered information (e.g., Google search results).
Do not scam or defraud.
Scams (e.g., phishing) of any kind are prohibited.
Do not disrespect staff decisions.
Disagreements must be discussed privately with the deciding moderator. If the moderator has retired or is unavailable, you may send a Staff PM. Do not contact multiple moderators hoping to find one amenable to your cause; however, you may contact a site administrator if you require a second opinion. Options for contacting staff include private message, Staff PM, and #what.cd-disabled on IRC.
Do not impersonate staff.
Impersonating staff or official service accounts (e.g., Drone) on-site, off-site, or on IRC is prohibited. Deceptively misrepresenting staff decisions is also prohibited.
Do not "backseat moderate".
"Backseat moderation" occurs when users police other users. Confronting, provoking, or chastising users suspected of violating rules—or users suspected of submitting reports—is prohibited. Submit a report if you see a rule violation.
Do not request special events.
Special events (e.g., freeleech, neutral leech, picks) are launched at the discretion of the staff. They do not adhere to a fixed schedule, and may not be requested by users.
Do not harvest user information.
Using What.CD's services to harvest user information of any kind (e.g., IP addresses) through the use of scripts, exploits, or other techniques is prohibited.
Do not use What.CD's services (including the tracker, website, and IRC network) for commercial gain.
Commercializing services provided by or code maintained by What.CD (e.g., Gazelle, Ocelot) is prohibited. Commercializing content provided by What.CD users via the aforementioned services (e.g., user torrent data) is prohibited. Referral schemes, financial solicitations, and money offers are also prohibited.
Do not browse What.CD using proxies (including any VPN) with dynamic or shared IP addresses.
You may browse the site through a private server/proxy only if it has a static IP address unique to you, or through your private or shared seedbox. Note that this applies to every kind of proxy, including VPN services, Tor, and public proxies. When in doubt, send a Staff PM seeking approval of your proxy or VPN. See our Proxy/VPN Tips and Multiple IPs articles for more information.
Do not abuse automated site access.
All automated site access must be done through the API. API use is limited to 5 requests within any 10-second window. Scripts and other automated processes must not scrape the site's HTML pages.
Do not autosnatch freeleech torrents.
The automatic snatching of freeleech torrents using any method involving little or no user-input (e.g., API-based scripts, log or site scraping, etc.) is prohibited. See What.CD’s Autosnatching Policy article for more information.
Do not seek or exploit live bugs for any reason.
Seeking or exploiting bugs in the live site (as opposed to a local development environment) is prohibited. If you discover a critical bug or security vulnerability, immediately report it in accordance with What.CD's Responsible Disclosure Policy. Non-critical bugs can be reported in the Bugs Forum.
Do not publish exploits.
The publication, organization, dissemination, sharing, technical discussion, or technical facilitation of exploits is prohibited at staff discretion. Exploits are defined as unanticipated or unaccepted uses of internal, external, non-profit, or for-profit services. See What.CD's Exploit Policy article for more information. Exploits are subject to reclassification at any time.
