Fimfiction Developers

Terms of Service

The aim of this API is to allow developers to create applications that provide additional and specific functionality for users.

This goal cannot be at the expense of the site itself however, which is why we have created this TOS which we hope is fair for both developers and us!

We reserve the right to update this document at any time based on any new policies we deem to be required without notice. By accepting these terms you agree to these conditions.

In effect as of 8th of July, 2017

Applications

  1. Never ever share your client secret. If you believe it to be compromised, generate a new one immediately.
  2. Take care when performing writes/deletes to obtain proper user consent before doing so.
  3. If you end up with many users we may contact you for additional terms agreement.

Respect Fimfiction as a Service

  1. Do not imply official linking to Fimfiction. Fimfiction branding is acceptable but it should be clear your application is not officially affiliated with Fimfiction.
  2. Use resources responsibly.
  3. Cache data when appropriate and try to avoid over selecting data.
  4. Don't replicate existing functionality of the website. (See below)
  5. Read rate limit headers and try to avoid sending requests that will error due to rate limiting.
  6. Do not try to get around rate limits (with multiple applications for example).
  7. Do not excessively use polling to update data. If you need to use polling, try and use sensible back off timings like exponentially increasing time until next poll when no new content is identified.
  8. If you need any kind of bespoke functionality that does not exist, contact us and we may be able to help if it prevents the need for excessive network requests.

Replicating Fimfiction

We ask that app developers do not replicate core parts of the Fimfiction website. Doing so can damage the ability for Fimfiction to be maintained into the future.

Apps should seek to augment existing core functionality with new and more specific features.

Spam

  1. Do not create apps that allow users to trivially spam content such as stories, comments and blog posts.
  2. Do not allow users to mass rate stories or comments.
  3. There is a fine line between automation and spam. Each case is different but we expect some reasonable judgement on your part.

Specifically Disallowed Functionality

  1. Do not create apps that let users know who has unfollowed them. This requires potentially a lot of network requests as it does not scale. More importantly though, users should not feel chastised for unfollowing other users.
  2. While we cannot stop people doing this, we ask you to respect authors wishes when deleting stories. This means if you host any kind of external archive we ask that you be respectful of people's desire to delete their own content.