Terms & Copyright

The code, the writing, the artwork and the way these games are put together belong to Shannon Porter · NewfieCards, 2025–2026. That's automatic — in Canada and in most of the world, a thing belongs to whoever made it the moment they make it, with nothing to file and nobody to tell. The line at the bottom of every page isn't what makes it so. It's there to say the work is claimed, and to tell you who to ask.

What I don't own, and nobody does: the games. Scat, 120s, Auction 45s, Tarabish and the rest are traditional games. Rules can't be owned by anyone, which is exactly as it should be — they came down to us and they carry on past us. What's mine is this particular way of dealing them.

I haven't registered any of it, in Canada or anywhere else, and I'd rather say so than let the footer imply otherwise.

Please don't copy, repost or reuse any of it. Some of it isn't mine to license to you even if I wanted to: a photograph belongs to whoever took it, and these were taken by families. If you're one of those families and you want something changed or taken down, email me and it's done — you don't have to give me a reason.

Please do:

• Play, watch, and use the site for what it's for
• Link to it, and tell anyone you like about it
• Take screenshots, and send them to me when something looks wrong

Please don't:

• Copy the site, its code, its writing or its artwork to put up somewhere else
• Reuse the memorial photographs, names or dates anywhere, for anything
• Scrape it, or point automated traffic at it — there is one small server behind all this and it's paid for out of my pocket
• Use it to harass anybody. This is a family site. I'll close an account over it without a conversation.

If you want to do something that isn't on either list, just ask. The answer is usually yes.

Everything below is what the site actually stores today. I've written it from the code rather than from memory, and if I add something this page changes with it.

What	Why
Your username, email and password	So you can sign in. The password is stored scrambled in a way that can't be reversed — I can't read it and neither can anybody else.
Whatever you put on your profile: a display name, where in Newfoundland you're from, a few lines about yourself, a photo	So the seat beside you is a person and not a number. All of it optional, all of it yours to change or empty.
A phone number and postal address, if you gave one	Asked when you request an invite or accept one, so I know who I'm letting in to a site my family uses. No other player ever sees them — they're not on your profile, not in the game, and never put in an email. Only me and anyone I've made a site admin can look them up, on the members page.
Your settings — preferred game, sound, house rules	So the table comes up the way you left it.
A record of games: who played, who won, and the moves made	So your profile can show you your own record, and so I can work out what happened when a game goes wrong.
Every line said in the chat, with who said it, which table, and when	So that if somebody is treated badly at a table there is a record of it, rather than my word against theirs. Kept, and read by nobody unless there's a reason to.
Ordinary server logs, kept seven days and then deleted	So an error can be traced back to what caused it.

The chat is stored, and I'd rather you heard it here. Since 13 September 2026 every line typed at a table is written down and kept. It was not before — and the About page had been claiming it was, which is how this came to be built: the claim was there, it was false, and the choice was to delete the sentence or make it true. I chose to make it true.

What that means in practice. Nobody is reading your chat. There is no alert, no filter and nothing scanning for words — it is a record that sits there, and the only reason to open it is if somebody tells me they were treated badly at a table. Then I can look instead of guessing. It stays even if your account is closed — see below.

There is no tracking of any kind on this site. No analytics, no advertising, no third-party pixels, nothing that follows you anywhere else. The only cookies are the two Django needs to keep you signed in and to stop forged form submissions.

Nothing is sold or shared. Not to anybody, not ever, and there's nobody to sell it to — this isn't a business.

You can leave, and you can take your way in with you. Email me and I'll close your account: your sign-in stops working, you can't be dealt into a game, and nobody can play you. That part is yours to decide and you don't have to give me a reason.

What doesn't go is the public record of who you were. The games you played, the scores you set against other people, and what you said in the chat all stay. Here's the reasoning, and it's the same reasoning any group applies: public content isn't private content. What you say to a room full of people has already been said to them. It was never only yours to take back, any more than you could un-say something across a kitchen table by leaving the kitchen.

There's a practical half to it too, and it's the more important one. If leaving wiped your history, then leaving would be how you got away with things. Anyone who broke the rules could close their account, open a new one, and arrive with a clean slate — and I'd have nothing to point at. A use-and-abuse policy that can be erased by the person it applies to isn't a policy at all. So this site remembers who a player was, even after they go.

What that does not mean is that I keep hold of your private details for ever. The public record is your name at the table and what you did there. Your phone number and address were only ever asked for so I knew who I was letting in; say the word when you go and I'll clear them.

This page said the opposite for one day. On 12 September 2026 it promised I'd delete your account and everything attached to it. That was never how this site worked, so it is corrected here rather than quietly removed. And if something specific genuinely needs taking down — a photo, anything about somebody who has died — email me and we'll sort it out properly. This is a policy, not a wall.

This site stands on a lot of free software written by people I've never met and given away for nothing. Their licences ask for credit, and they've earned it.

What	Used for	Licence
Django	Everything the server does	BSD 3-clause
Django Channels	The live table — the part that keeps every seat in step	BSD 3-clause
Bootstrap 5.3	How the pages are laid out	MIT
jQuery 3.7	Bits of the lobby and the table	MIT
Font Awesome 6.4 (Free)	Every icon on the site	Icons CC BY 4.0, fonts SIL OFL 1.1, code MIT

The people who helped with this site rather than this list of software are on the Special Thanks page, where they belong.

This is a site one person builds on a day a week for his family. It will break sometimes, and when it does I'll fix it and say what happened — the About page keeps a running account of what works and what doesn't, including the parts that don't flatter me. I can't promise it'll be up, I can't promise a game won't be lost, and I'd rather tell you that now than put it in small print.

Anything at all — a question, a correction, a takedown, or something that just looks wrong — shannon@newfiecards.com.

Last written 12 September 2026.