Terms of use

Who operates what, for whom

nard.gg is a server for backgammon and its regional variants, operated by the private individual named in the legal notice. Matches are played in real time or in correspondence mode, against humans or against the computer.

The service is free of charge. There is no advertising and no real money; nobody plays for money or pays anything in, and there are no chips, no purchasable currency, no payout of winnings, no donations and no sales. No contract for a service against payment is concluded. The operation is a test operation: it may be changed, restricted or discontinued at any time.

These terms apply to every use of this site — to accounts just as to playing without an account, because a board can also be opened and accepted as a guest. Anyone who plays here accepts them; anyone who does not accept them does not play here.

Minimum age

Use requires a minimum age of 16 years. By creating an account and by opening or accepting a match, you declare that you are at least 16 years old.

This is a self-declaration, and it is deliberately not a hurdle in a form: a tick box in the registration form checks nothing and only creates the appearance of a check. Proof of age is neither required nor stored — that would require collecting identity-document data, which is out of all proportion to a board game without money and without open chat. Anyone who is recognisably younger is excluded from use; a parent or guardian who wants an account removed writes to the address given below.

Account, guest seat, credentials

An account is voluntary. It needs a username and a password; an e-mail address is optional and is used only to reset a forgotten password and for the notification “it is your turn”. Anyone who plays without an account gets a guest seat without a name and without credentials.

• Your username is public. It appears under every match you play. Anyone who chooses their real name publishes it.
• An account belongs to one person. Do not pass on your password and do not let anyone play in your place. Actions taken under your account are attributed to you.
• A lost password without a stored e-mail address cannot be reset. The operator cannot read your password and cannot give you a new one.
• No entitlement to a particular name. Names that impersonate another person, an authority or the operator, or that are insulting, inflammatory or unlawful, may be removed.

Rules of conduct

What someone publishes here are the username and the voluntary profile details — introduction, club, self-reported tournament rating, up to three links or names on other platforms. In addition there is a single place with free text: in matches that come about through an invitation link, the two players can write each other short messages at the board — only the two of them, only while the match page is open; they are not stored and are read along by nobody. These rules are aimed precisely there. The following is prohibited:

• Insults, threats, harassment and incitement against persons or groups — in a name, in a profile detail, in a stored link, in a message at the board. Anyone who reads something like this in a message reports it using the “Report” link in the chat; because the message is not stored, the report describes what was said. The consequence is the same as for any other violation: hiding or deleting the account, as described in the section after next.
• Misuse of names and profile fields: advertising, spam, redirects to games-of-chance, fraud or malware sites, impersonating someone else, personal data of third parties, content that infringes the rights of third parties.
• Illegal content of any kind. Anyone who finds such content can notify it using “Report content” — without an account and without signing in.
• Attacks on the operation: circumventing security or access restrictions, exploiting faults instead of reporting them, automated mass requests, load attacks and anything that makes the service unusable for others.
• Circumventing a measure that has been taken against you under the section after next — in particular by means of another account.

Anyone who finds a security vulnerability is asked to report it to the address given below before trying it out. A report that helps the operation is welcome; an attack remains an attack, even if it was “only a test”.

Fair play at the board

A match is a shared affair: it concerns the other side just as much as you, it is the basis of result and rating, and it remains public permanently. The following is therefore prohibited:

• Outside assistance in competition. In a match against a human you decide for yourself — without a backgammon program, without a database, without a third party calculating along next to you.
• Automated play. Moves are made by hand, not by a script. Anyone who wants to play against the computer will find it on the site — no one needs one of their own for that.
• Manipulation of matches and rating: agreements on the outcome, deliberate losing, shifting points between several accounts of your own, exploiting technical faults for your own advantage.
• Wrecking a running match: deliberately letting the clock run out, staying away without resigning, deliberately dropping the connection in order to let a stopped clock work in your favour.

The analysis after the match, the puzzles and the boards against the computer are expressly there for getting better. They are open to everyone and are not outside assistance within the meaning of this section — which concerns only the running match against a human.

What the operator can do — and how

If someone violates these terms, the operator can intervene. Because that is an intervention, exactly what happens is set out here — no more than the service can actually do.

How a case arises. Either something is noticed during operation, or someone reports it using “Report content” (Art. 16 Digital Services Act). The form works without an account and without signing in and confirms receipt immediately.

Who decides. The operator, a single person. There is no team, no automatic detection and no automated decision: every case is looked at by hand.

What measures there are. Exactly two, and they come in this order:

• The profile details of an account are hidden from the public. Introduction, club, tournament rating and links then disappear from the public player page. The account remains, you can keep playing, and in your settings you see your details unchanged. The measure applies to the whole account, never to a single field.
• The account is deleted. This is the last resort and is reserved for serious or repeated violations. The username, e-mail address and password are deleted — signing in is no longer possible afterwards, all sessions end immediately, and the name becomes free again. It is the same deletion that you can also trigger yourself under Settings: the matches played remain under an identifier that carries no content, because they also belong to the other side. The section “What happens on a request for erasure” in the privacy statement describes this in detail.

Both are to be used proportionately, and the reason must be a violation of these terms or of applicable law. Illegal content can also be removed without this requiring a measure against an account.

How you find out. You can tell that your details have been hidden from the fact that your profile details no longer appear on your public player page while they are still in your settings; a deletion from the fact that you are signed out and can no longer sign in. There is no separate message: an e-mail address is voluntary here, most accounts have none, and there is no other channel to an account. Anyone who has stored a confirmed address will be informed of a deletion where possible.

What is not kept. No file is kept on measures. The operator only counts how often he has taken action — per day and type of action, without reference to a person. A processed notice is deleted, together with its text and any contact address given voluntarily; it belongs to the person who wrote it.

What does not exist technically. There is no access block: no blocked accounts, no blocked addresses, no device recognition. Anyone who creates a new account after a measure is not technically prevented from doing so — but violates these terms, and that is the reason why the operator may intervene again. We would rather write this down honestly than claim a block that does not exist.

Objection

You can challenge any measure informally: an e-mail to kontakt (at) nard.gg is enough, without a deadline and without any form. Please describe yourself what it is about — a notice that led to the measure has already been deleted by then. The operator looks at the case again and replies; if the measure was wrong, it is reversed. Hiding can be undone completely. Deletion cannot — that is why it is the last resort and not the first. The right to go to court and the rights under the Digital Services Act remain unaffected.

When writing, please replace “(at)” with the @ sign; this spelling protects the address from automated address harvesters.

Availability, maintenance, data loss

There is no entitlement to availability. The service runs on a single rented server and is operated by one person on the side. Maintenance, restarts and updates take place without prior notice and may interrupt running matches.

In the event of a malfunction, data may be lost — a running match, the last moves, in the worst case everything since the last backup. There is no entitlement to the preservation of stored matches, rating figures or profile details, and none to any particular range of functions: what is here today may be different or missing tomorrow. The operation may be discontinued at any time and without giving reasons.

End of use

You can stop at any time — without a notice period, without giving reasons and without telling anyone. Anyone with an account can delete it themselves under Settings, confirmed with their own password; an informal e-mail to the address given above is also enough. What happens then is set out in the section above and in detail in the privacy statement. Anyone who played as a guest simply stops; a guest seat without a match lapses on its own.

The operator can likewise end the use — as a rule by discontinuing the service altogether, and in an individual case by deleting an account as described in the section “What the operator can do”. In the case of a serious or repeated violation this happens without notice; in every other case the route of objection is the one described above.

Your content and the matches

You retain your rights in what you enter — name, introduction, club, links. You grant the operator only what operation requires: to store this information on this site and to display it publicly. None of it is analysed, passed on or sold. You warrant that you hold the rights to what you enter.

Matches are public and remain. The position, move log, result and rating of a match belong to both sides; the move log is only ever continued, never changed and never removed item by item — not even by the operator. A match therefore cannot be withdrawn. Anyone who deletes their account removes the personal reference, not the match; afterwards it stands under an identifier that carries no content.

Liability

The service is provided free of charge and without warranty. The operator is liable for damage based on intent or gross negligence, as well as in the event of injury to life, body or health and under the Product Liability Act (Produkthaftungsgesetz). Otherwise he is liable only for the breach of a material contractual obligation, and in that case limited in amount to the typically foreseeable damage. There is no further liability — in particular for loss of data, or for lost matches, rating figures or usage time.

For content entered by other users and for linked third-party pages, what the legal notice states under “Liability for content” and “Liability for links” applies.

Changes to these terms

If anything about the service changes that affects these terms, this page is updated; the current version applies. Notification is not possible — an e-mail address is voluntary here, and most accounts have none. Anyone who does not agree with a change can stop using the service at any time and delete their account; that is the reason why this works without a notice period and in two clicks.

Applicable law

German law applies. If the user is a consumer with habitual residence in another state, the mandatory protective provisions of that state remain unaffected. Jurisdiction is governed by the statutory rules. There is no willingness to take part in dispute resolution proceedings before a consumer arbitration board.

Legal notice and data protection

Who operates the service and how to reach them is set out in the legal notice. Which data are stored and what happens to them is set out in the privacy statement. If something on this site is wrong, missing or badly worded, Feedback is the open route alongside — and “Report content” the one for illegal content.