What we each agree to

Short, because most of it is obvious and the rest is on two other pages. This is the part that is genuinely an agreement: what we run, what stays yours, and the one thing we can do to an account.

What this is

An archive, run by people, for reading.

BoundaryLab is a place to write down everyday boundaries — the conversations that went badly, the ones that went better than expected, the ones you rehearsed and never had. It is not advice, not therapy, and not a crisis service. If you are in danger or in crisis, please contact emergency services or a helpline; nothing here is a substitute for that.

You need to be 16 or over to have an account. Anyone can read without one.

We run this as carefully as we can and we do not promise it will never be down, never lose anything, or never make a mistake. If something goes wrong, tell us and we will fix what we can.

Your writing

It stays yours. All of it.

What you write stays yours: You keep the copyright in every word. By publishing here you give BoundaryLab permission to show it on this site, and nothing beyond that — not to sell it, not to license it on, not to put it in anything else without asking you first.
You can take it back: Any entry, at any time, for any reason, without explaining. Withdrawing it removes it from the archive. Asking us to delete your account takes the folder and everything in it.
Nothing publishes by itself: Every entry is read by a person before it goes up. We can ask you to change something, or decline to publish it — usually because it identifies someone who has not agreed to be here.
You are writing about your own life: Write about what happened to you. Don't publish someone else's private details, don't name people who haven't consented, and don't post anything you don't have the right to post.

When an account comes down

We can put an account on hold, and sometimes we will.

This site only works if the people writing in it are safe. So we reserve the right to suspend or remove an account that is used to do harm here. That is not a general licence to remove anyone we disagree with — it is for these things:

Naming or identifying someone who has not agreed to be named.
Harassing, threatening, or targeting another person here.
Using somebody's story against them — in a reply, or anywhere else.
Posting someone else's writing as your own.
Deliberately working around the review, or around the limits the site puts on accounts.

Suspension comes first, and it is reversible. A suspended account can no longer publish or reply, and its folder stops being shown in the archive. Nothing is deleted: the writing stays yours, you can still take any of it back yourself, and if we have got it wrong, tell us and we will undo it.

We will tell you it has happened and give you the reason in plain words. Deleting an account outright is reserved for cases where leaving it in place would put someone at risk — because unlike a suspension, it cannot be undone.

You can close your own account at any time, and you do not have to give a reason for that either. Email [email protected].

on hold, not deleted — you keep every word

If this changes

We ask again rather than assume.

When these terms, the privacy note or the guidelines change in a way that alters what you agreed to, you are asked again the next time you write — with the new version in front of you. Carrying on without being asked is not consent, so the site does not treat it as any.

These terms are governed by the law of England and Wales.

Read alongside the privacy note for what is held about you, and the guidelines for what we ask of each other.

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