Terms of Service

Disclaimer

By purchasing, creating or otherwise obtaining a WorldofLingua character design or registering for this Website (http://worldoflingua.com/), you agree to the following Terms.

WorldofLingua will henceforth be also spelled as World of Lingua, for reference World of Lingua groups include: ParalogosDictionary, Whifflings..

This document may undergo changes over time. Changes will be announced via the NEWS PAGE 30 days before effective date.  Continuing to use the Website after this date constitutes agreement with the modified Terms.

Offenses follow a three-strike system. Users who break these Terms may receive a strike depending on the situation. After gaining three of these aforementioned strikes, users will be subject to consideration of being removed and/or banned from the Website and other groups operated by World of Lingua.

I. GENERAL TERMS & CONDITIONS

  1. Please give credit to Mewhaku [Can be referred to as Mew, or Sarah with a link to DeviantArt profile or similar to clarify that Sarah is mewhaku] for owning World of Lingua.
    1. As a particular note, character species within the World of Lingua may have additional accreditations, this will be updated over time as new character species may arise. 
  • Credit is required everywhere you post art of your character.
  • Secondary credit needs to be given for the designer of a given character.
No "backseat" administrating or modding, please leave group procedures to group staff!
  • If someone is having issues or has done something wrong, note the group [whether on DeviantArt, Discord, or the website itself] so that an administrator can fix the issue. 
Be kind and courteous to all members, if not simply professional or neutral in interactions. Intentional drama is not allowed and incendiary comments not permitted.
  • If a member problem should arise, please send a note to the group [whether on DeviantArt, Discord, or the website itself] or directly to an administrator [with prior permission- otherwise Mewhaku is happy to talk privately] to discuss it.
  • If a member is suspected of cheating or manipulating group rewards administrators will also handle it, please do not accuse or ‘go after’ an individual suspected of this yourself. 
Please allow group administrators and volunteers at least 72 hours to respond to any type of inquiry. (Submission review, masterlist updates, etc.) Sometimes things may take longer if considerable offline issues are occuring, but after 72 hours by all means you can ask what happened. We are happy to help!
  • If commenting on DeviantArt itself, please ping LogosLibrary or @logosassistant for aid on that site, do not message individual administrators. [This version of contact is NO LONGER actively moderated, please be aware.]
  • If commenting on Discord, please DM mewhaku#9034 directly as needed, or if you have previously discussed things with another administrator you may contact them- do not harass them or approach them otherwise individually. 
  • In addition- Please allow admins at least one (1) week to distribute event prizes and gifts. If we missed you, by all means- please let us know!
  • If repeated inquiries are made within a short time period that would be considered harassment, a strike will result.
Only artwork of officialized characters listed on their appropriate masterlist will be accepted as usable within the World of Lingua website and group[s].  Do not "repurpose" official World of Lingua artwork for other projects, we will reach out as needed to approach members for Guest Art involvement and other needed aid.

II. GENERAL ADOPTABLE TERMS AND CONDITIONS

  1. World of Lingua’s species [unless otherwise noted] are what is considered a closed species and you cannot make your own without permission.
    1. Paralogos Design Guidelines
    2. Whiffling Design Guidelines
    3. Permission is given in the form of "Make-Your-Own" or "MYO" slots. 
    4. All MYO designs must follow the MYO Guidelines appropriate for that species.
    5. It is highly encouraged NOT to repost full, unwatermarked versions of World of Lingua species adoptables anywhere, and to put appropriate protections on your unique character artwork to disincentivize stealing.
  2. Do not claim the art and design as your own, unless you designed the character- but the general species ownership credits would still belong to mewhaku [Mew].
    • Give credit to the original artist [including yourself!] should you post your purchased adoptable anywhere.
    • Individual artists will have their own terms and conditions for using their given artwork and sometimes designs, and also on how they process their sales. Please be respectful of them. [For example, mewhaku sends invoices to buyers via PayPal.]
  3. Currently co-ownership of characters is supported officially on the World of Lingua website, but any disputes amongst co-owners must be handled by the relevant users.
  4. Users who are banned from a given World of Lingua species group [Current DeviantArt group[s]: ParalogosDictionary, Whifflings] are not permitted to actively participate in group activities or the World of Lingua website. 
    • Designs owned by banned members still belong to the banned individual- but cannot participate in the group officially or be sold or transferred officially.
    • That design that was owned before banning will be considered "dead" or "inactive". You can still draw about it or write about it- we cannot take away your rights to a character/design/piece of art you paid for. They simply won’t be a member of Lingua’s world anymore. They may be subject in this case to full deletion.
    • A design will also be noted as "inactive" if the account associated with it is deactivated or otherwise no longer responsive [when this is notified to us- as in you plan to close your accounts and go “offline”. If you ever come back, please update us! If you plan on simply being inactive due to life being busy or otherwise other commitments, that is fine. You don't need to notify the group, you can just keep your characters and return whenever.
    • On that note, anyone found to be selling a design inauthentically (aka you don't own it), particularly an "inactive" design, will swiftly be banned, and reported since you'll be selling the artwork and character rights inauthentically.
  5. Changes to designs are allowed given certain conditions- 
    • To update a character's design officially for a given active character: visit the Snapshot Shop!
    • Generally in both Paralogos and Whifflings you need to remove any species defining characteristics if you're making the character into another species entirely. [In Paralogos, this is likely the gecko-style tail and light patterning/lore, in Whifflings this is likely the rabbit styled noses, skirts, and big eyes.] This might be in the case of voiding or otherwise making an AU version of the character in another closed species.
    • On the Note of Characters with Alternate Forms- you can make a version of your Lingua character for another species. The core rules for having an active character here and in another species would be: 1. Make sure the other species is fine with it. 2. Make sure you have the designer's permission [if you did not design it yourself], and 3. Always trade a character and their respective species forms together if they are all active at the same time. 
  6. Characters should be drawn and written about with accessories and abilities they actually have, unless the artwork is deliberately specified as AU [Alternate Universe] and therefore not qualified for official group events, prompts, and similar.
  7. As the owner of a design, you may always take aspects of a World of Lingua character [with permission from its designer- this statement is blanket permission from mewhaku] and reuse them for something entirely new. Key words being "entirely new". Characters morph and change- just don't call it a member of its species anymore or use any distinct species concepts. 
    • You can also change your character into a completely other Closed Species as long as you have the other Closed Species creator's permission and you notify mewhaku. The character in question's design will be deactivated once the group has been given information about the character being 'reformed'. You character will then be removed from its respective masterlist on mewhaku’s end, so that you may use them in the new realm they belong to. Please ensure if you didn't design the character yourself, that you have the original designer's permission as well.

III. RESELLING TERMS AND CONDITIONS

    1. You must link the masterlist entry for World of Lingua species put up for trade/sale/raffle in their respective group.
    2. Users who are banned from the World of Lingua website or a respective DeviantArt group belonging to mewhaku CANNOT obtain ownership of another World of Lingua species. 
  • As mentioned earlier inactive characters are not officially recognized in the group and may not be used for prompts or the ARPG.
  • We currently do not have any explicitly banned users, but we will provide a public link if this occurs- these banned users as mentioned cannot sell or trade their World of Lingua species characters as these become inactive upon banishment.
Once the masterlist has been updated with new owners, the transfer cannot be reversed.
  • All trades, resales, and gifts are final. Group administrators cannot reverse this unless the sale was a scam in some way- and we would need appropriate evidence. 
Gifting, retrading, and reselling adoptable species designs are allowed according to the status listed on their appropriate masterlist.
  • Make Your Own [MYO] Character Slots which are not yet designed may be traded or sold again given their respective original status [gifts/traded may be gifted/traded, but not sold for example.]
  • The appropriate Masterlist gives all the details you would need in general for these transactions.
On a note of the above, you cannot resell your character for higher than the original cost- this is meant to avoid excess resale of character designs.
  • However, if you have added significant value to your character’s design, please note the group for an updated character value. World of Lingua owner, Mewhaku, does work in resale professionally, and can apply this additional value as needed. 
  • As a result, only direct resale is approved, no resale “character auctions” of the highest bidder. Auctions are only permitted upon original sale of the character in question. 
  • If a group member is in financial straits and needs to sell in order to obtain funds for living offline, please do reach out to the group- we will work with you to help!
  • In addition, character species adoptables may be traded for real life merchandise up to the value of money spent to originally purchase the design.
To ensure it is understood- please note that World of Lingua cannot facilitate the trades or sales- we are not an ecommerce marketplace or servicer. If merchandise is lost in transit, we cannot compensate you. If an individual never fulfills their half of an art trade and you proceeded the character transaction- we can help you reach out but cannot force fulfillment. Please be careful when doing character sales or trades!
  • If there is proof shown a member was disingenuous, we can ban them or give them strikes as appropriate, however. 
You may trade/sell your World of Lingua based species design for virtual pet site currency/items/pets on websites that allow cross-site trading. 
  • For these trades, as always, please ensure you provide the exact terms of the agreement shown when we go to process the trade. 
  • Again, World of Lingua associated groups cannot help you if currencies or other items are lost or have other issues after the trade is processed. 
  • Before processing a given off-site trade, you will need prior direct approval from mewhaku for said trade. 

 

  • The member receiving the design must also then have a World of Lingua based account to receive the species design on. 

 

  1. If you want to trade the design offsite and the other party does not want to follow the above final bullet point - the design must be altered to the point where it is no longer a World of Lingua based creature.
  • Again, this must be reviewed with the respective group/mewhaku prior to the completion of a sale or trade. 
  • Mewhaku does not operate on some other sites, such as but not including: Amino, FurAffinity (low activity account), YouTube's art community, etc. We cannot have individuals. As a result, mewhaku cannot oversee non-group based activity on these other platforms, hence why we do not currently support them.
Gifted or Traded World of Lingua based species may only be gifted or traded for. They cannot be resold [This is again specified on the given masterlist entry.] Please respect other species’ and design’s TOS when character trading or selling.  For individuals using the website toyhou.se to keep track of characters, the creator must be listed as "mewhaku" for any designs there. (If you designed it, you can list yourself as a designer-- so on/so forth.) If you use sta.sh-- please do make sure you wrote down on there somewhere the species credits!

 

IV. GROUP SPECIFIC INFORMATION

 [For use on DeviantArt Submissions]

  1. The Selling Trading and Other Journals folder on a given World of Lingua group requires that the species of that group be a main feature of the journal/etc in question. 
  2. It should be obvious to the mods and your advertise-es how your sale/trade/inquiry is species group related. 
    1. Easy ways to do this are: Including the species name in the title, featuring a member of the species prominently on your journal/deviation, etc. You may repost sales or trades inquiries every 14 days.