Terms of Membership
Effective date: June 22, 2026
Version: Draft v1
Last updated: June 22, 2026
Status: Draft (pending legal review)
Steppe is community-owned, ad-free civic infrastructure for Redmond, Central Oregon, operated by Steppe, a fiscally sponsored nonprofit (fiscal sponsor: Ignite Empowerment Foundation, a Central Oregon 501(c)(3)). These Terms of Membership govern your use of Steppe. A plain-language summary of how Steppe works lives across the site, and a companion Privacy Policy explains how we handle data; this document is the formal version. By becoming a member you agree to these terms.
1. Membership and Verification
Membership is open to verified residents of Central Oregon (beginning with Redmond, Oregon) who are at least 18 years old. Steppe is not anonymous: you prove once that you live here, and that gate is what keeps the community real. Membership is limited to adults; a version for ages 13–17 is planned for the future, with its own protections, and is not yet available.
A person reviews your proof of residency, and the proof is deleted the moment that check is made. We keep only that you are verified, the date, and the method — never an identity document, and never your legal name. To one another, members are known by a username (pseudonymous to peers). One account per member.
2. Community Standards: A Two-Tier Model
What is and isn't allowed on Steppe lives in two layers.
Legal floor (not subject to member vote)
A short list of conduct is prohibited everywhere on Steppe and cannot be enabled by any member vote, because it reflects the law and the safety obligations of the organization:
- illegal goods or services;
- child sexual abuse material (CSAM) — reported to the NCMEC as required by law upon actual knowledge;
- non-consensual intimate imagery — removed through the process required by the TAKE IT DOWN Act;
- credible threats of violence;
- human trafficking or exploitation.
Community norms (member-governed)
Everything above that floor — civility, harassment, the categories the marketplace may list, and similar standards — is set by the members through governance and recorded in the amendable Schedule of Defaults. Members decide the norms; members do not get to vote the legal floor away.
3. Moderation
Moderation is reactive and report-driven: members report content, human moderators review and decide, and the outcome is recorded in the public transparency log. A person — not an automated system — makes every consequential call.
We do not proactively monitor, scan, or filter your posts or your messages, and nothing here should be read as a promise to do so. Surfacing and sorting tools may help a moderator find a report faster, but they never decide. Removals may be appealed through the governance process.
4. The Marketplace / Exchange
Steppe hosts member listings — needs, offers, goods, jobs, mutual aid, and events.
- No on-platform payments. Steppe does not process, hold, or escrow money. Any transaction happens off-platform, directly between members, at their own arrangement and risk.
- Prohibited items. Listings may not offer anything on the legal floor in Section 2, nor anything on the member-governed prohibited-items list.
- Report a listing. Any member can report a listing; moderators act on reports as described in Section 3.
Steppe is not a party to transactions between members and makes no warranty about any listing, member, item, or service. Verified residency is the primary deterrent against bad-faith dealing.
5. Your Content
You keep ownership of what you post. You grant Steppe only the limited license needed to store and display your content to other members so the service works. You can delete your content, export your data, and leave at any time.
6. Data, Privacy, and Legal Process
How we handle data is set out in the Privacy Policy. In short, and as it bears on these terms:
- Verification evidence is deleted immediately after the residency check; we retain only the verified status, the date, and the method. Because we do not keep the proof, we cannot produce or disclose it — including under legal process.
- Messages and other member content are minimized and kept only for a limited window.
- We disclose member data only as required by valid legal process, and we can only ever produce what we actually hold. The scope of "we don't keep it" is verification identity; we are honest that account details and content within their retention window do exist and may be subject to lawful disclosure.
7. Acceptable Use
Don't break the law; don't abuse, harass, endanger, or impersonate neighbors; don't try to evade verification or moderation; and don't scrape, overload, or attack the service.
8. Suspension and Termination
We may suspend or remove a member who violates the legal floor in Section 2 or, through the governance process, the community norms. You may leave at any time and we delete our copy of your data, except where an entry must remain in the append-only governance and transparency record.
9. Disclaimers and Limitation of Liability
The service is provided "as is," without warranties, to the fullest extent permitted by law. To the fullest extent Oregon law allows, Steppe and its directors, officers, employees, and volunteers are not liable for indirect, incidental, or consequential damages, and our total liability for any claim is limited to the dues you paid us in the twelve months before the claim (which is zero during any period when membership is free). Nothing here limits liability that cannot be limited under Oregon law — including for gross negligence, willful misconduct, or personal injury — or any non-waivable rights you have under the Oregon Unlawful Trade Practices Act.
10. Governance and Changes to These Terms
The community-norms layer of these terms is amendable by member vote through the governance process; the legal floor in Section 2 is not. We will post any revised version here with a new effective date and, for material changes, give members notice in advance.
11. Contact
Questions about these terms can be sent to hello@steppe.community or by mail to 3566 NW 8th Street, Redmond, OR 97756.