Terms of service

These Terms of Service (“Terms”) are an agreement between you and The Krew (“we”, “us”, or “our”), the team that builds and operates Panopticon. They govern your use of the Panopticon moderation panel (the “App”) and the Panopticon community forum (the “Forum”). We call the App and the Forum together the “Services”; this website is covered too.

By accessing or using the Services you agree to these Terms, to our Privacy Policy, and to our Community Guidelines, which are part of this agreement. If you do not agree, do not use the Services.

The Krew is an unincorporated association, not a registered company. These Terms bind you and the people who operate the Services as The Krew.

Who may use the Services

You must be at least 16 years old to use the Services. By using them you confirm that you are 16 or older and that you are able to enter into this agreement.

If you use the Services for an organization — for example, by running a tenant for a game community — you confirm that you are authorized to act for that organization, and you accept these Terms on its behalf as well as your own.

Access is invite-only for now. We may grant, decline, limit, or withdraw access at our discretion, and we may change who is eligible over time.

Your account and access

You sign in to the App with Steam. You are responsible for keeping your Steam account secure and for everything done through your Panopticon session. We do not hold a password for you.

You sign in to the Forum with an email address and password, and you may optionally link a Discord account. Keep your credentials secure, do not share your account, session, or API keys, and do not use someone else’s account without permission. Tell us promptly if you believe your access has been compromised.

You can also sign in to the Forum using your Panopticon account (single sign-on). When you do, the forum groups that reflect your Panopticon standing — Tenant Owner and Server Moderator — are set from your tenant roles. These are the only forum groups tied to Panopticon; the rest of your forum standing is managed on the Forum.

Acceptable use

Your use of the Services must follow our Community Guidelines. In addition, you agree not to:

• use the Services to break the law or to harm, harass, threaten, defame, or invade the privacy of anyone;
• post another person’s private information, or reveal a game player’s identity in a way our Community Guidelines prohibit;
• access, probe, or interfere with the Services, other tenants’ data, or the infrastructure behind them without authorization;
• scrape, bulk-download, or resell data from the Services except through an API key issued to you and used within its scope;
• upload malware, or content you do not have the rights to share;
• circumvent access controls, bans, rate limits, spam filters, or the invite gate; or
• misrepresent who you are or who you act for.

Moderation, evidence, and the global ban list

Panopticon is a tool you use to moderate your own game servers. You are responsible for the moderation decisions you make with it — the mutes, kicks, bans, notes, watchlist entries, and escalations you create — and for having a lawful basis to record the player data you enter.

The App includes a shared global ban list of confirmed cheaters that participating servers can opt into. A player reaches that list only through escalation: a moderator submits the case with a written reason and evidence, and it goes to anti-cheat review before any cross-tenant ban. When you use the global ban list or escalation you agree that:

• your reports and escalations are truthful, made in good faith, and supported by evidence you obtained lawfully;
• you will not submit false, retaliatory, or grudge-driven escalations; and
• you understand that bans from other tenants appear on your servers as read-only entries you may enforce but not edit.

Accusations about specific players belong in the escalation process, not in public Forum posts. Redact player identifiers in screenshots and logs you share publicly. See the Community Guidelines for the full rule.

The audit log

Every change you make in the App is written to a tamper-evident, hash-chained audit log that cannot be edited or deleted after the fact. This is a core feature: it is how the Services stay accountable. By using the App you accept that your actions are recorded permanently in this way and may be retained for security and accountability even after you stop using the Services. How long we keep audit records, and what they contain, is described in our Privacy Policy.

API keys

Tenant owners and admins can create scoped API keys so their game servers can issue bans, kicks, and mutes on their own. You are responsible for keeping your keys secret and for everything done with them. Use each key only within its scope, respect rate limits, and revoke a key you no longer need or that may be exposed. We may revoke keys or limit API access to protect the Services.

Content you submit

You keep ownership of the content you submit — reasons, notes, evidence, Forum posts, and uploads. You grant us a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free license to host, store, process, and display that content only as needed to operate and improve the Services. You are responsible for your content, and you confirm that you have the rights to submit it and that it does not break these Terms or the law.

Fees

The Services are provided free of charge during the current invite-only phase. You may choose to support the project through Ko-fi; donations are voluntary and handled by Ko-fi. If we introduce paid features in the future, we will publish separate terms and give notice before they apply to you.

Third-party services

The Services rely on and link to services run by others, including Steam (App sign-in and player profiles), Discord (optional Forum sign-in), and Ko-fi (donations). Your use of those services is governed by their own terms and privacy policies. We are not responsible for third-party services and do not control them.

Availability and changes to the Services

Panopticon is early, pre-release software. We may add, change, suspend, or discontinue any part of the Services at any time, and features may break or change without notice. We do not promise the Services will be uninterrupted, error-free, or preserved.

Suspension and termination

We may suspend or end your access to the Services at any time if you break these Terms or the Community Guidelines, if we are required to by law, or to protect the Services or other users. You may stop using the Services at any time. Some records — in particular the immutable audit log and moderation history — may remain after your access ends, as described in the Privacy Policy. Sections that by their nature should survive termination (for example the content license, disclaimers, liability limits, and governing law) continue to apply.

Signing in to the Forum with your Panopticon account is separate from your ability to use the Forum. If you lose a tenant role, or your Panopticon account or forum access ends, we remove the Panopticon-managed forum groups (Tenant Owner and Server Moderator), but this alone does not suspend or delete your forum account — you remain an ordinary Forum member unless the Forum’s own rules provide otherwise.

Disclaimers

The Services are provided “as is” and “as available”, without warranties of any kind, whether express or implied, including any implied warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, and non-infringement, to the fullest extent permitted by law. We do not warrant that the Services will be accurate, secure, or available, or that moderation data, evidence, or the global ban list will be free of errors.

Limitation of liability

To the fullest extent permitted by law, The Krew and its operators will not be liable for any indirect, incidental, special, consequential, or punitive damages, or for any loss of data, access, goodwill, or profits, arising out of or related to your use of the Services. Because the Services are provided free of charge, our total liability for any claim relating to them is limited to the fullest extent permitted by law.

Indemnification

You agree to indemnify and hold harmless The Krew and its operators from any claims, damages, losses, and expenses (including reasonable legal fees) arising from your use of the Services, your content, your moderation decisions, or your breach of these Terms or the law.

Governing law and disputes

These Terms are governed by the laws of the State of Texas in the United States, without regard to its conflict-of-laws rules. You agree that any dispute relating to the Services will be brought exclusively in the state or federal courts located in the State of Texas, and you consent to their jurisdiction, except where applicable law gives you the right to bring a claim elsewhere.

Changes to these Terms

We may update these Terms from time to time. When we do, we will change the effective date above, and for material changes we will give reasonable notice through the Services. Your continued use after an update means you accept the revised Terms.

Contact

Questions about these Terms? Email us at [email protected].