The rules, plainly.

Last updated: October 19, 2026

Published October 26, 2026. Note: these terms have not been attorney-reviewed. Licensed North Carolina attorney review is pending and is the standing launch gate before accounts, uploads, or LIVE open publicly. Account-creation checkbox acceptance described here ships with the login build and is not live yet; browsing acceptance (Section 1) is the only acceptance in effect today.

Operator: RodwellHQ LLC ("RodwellHQ," "we," "us") Service: The Yard at yards.fyi (the "Service," the "Yard") Last updated: October 26, 2026

The short version, in plain language

The Yard is a free HBCU content and community platform — scores, news, homecomings, band clips, and the talk of the yard. It is Black-centered in culture and content and open to everyone — nobody is rejected.

You can browse everything without an account. Accounts, when they open, are for people 18 and older, and you accept these Terms by reading them in full and checking a box — not by just continuing to browse. You keep the rights to what you post; you give us a narrow license to host and display it so the site works. Member posts are member speech — unverified, and not endorsed by us. Picks are free, carry no prizes, and no money ever attaches to an engagement mechanic. Breaking the rules is handled through a strikes ladder, never "at any time, for any reason." There is no arbitration clause and no class-action waiver at launch. Our liability is capped as Section 11 states, with printed carve-outs. Everything below is in plain language, and the storage description stays general on purpose — see the Privacy Policy, Section 5, for what that means and what it does not claim.

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1. Acceptance — how you agree

If you browse: by accessing or using the Service, you agree to follow these Terms. If you do not agree, do not use the Service.

If you create an account (at launch): acceptance happens through the checkbox flow, and it is the only acceptance that creates an account:

1. The age screen runs first, before any personal information is collected. Accounts are for people 18 and older.
2. You sign in through the provider you choose (Google, Facebook, or an emailed code).
3. The assent step shows these Terms and the Privacy Policy in full, in separate panes. The create button stays disabled in code until you have scrolled each pane to its end, and you tick unchecked boxes affirming you understand the terms and agreements.
4. On submit, the Service writes a consent receipt: your user ID, the Terms and Policy versions plus a SHA-256 hash of the exact texts, the timestamp, the flow and screen, and the locale. Receipts are append-only and never edited. You can view and download your receipts from your profile at any time.

"Affirming you understand" means you were presented the full texts and took the affirmative act of ticking the boxes. It is not a warranty that you understood every legal consequence, and it does not waive any right you cannot waive.

This checkbox flow is not live yet. It ships with the login build. Until then, no account can be created and no consent receipt exists.

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2. How the page works, in plain language

• Browsing is free. Scores, news, homecoming dates, school pages, band clips, the Wall, and the Morning Drop are open to everyone with no account and no sign-in.
• Talk and the Wall are public conversation. Yard Talk messages and Wall submissions appear under the nickname you choose. Host posts are labeled. Member posts are member speech — see Section 5.
• Picks are free and for fun. Pick'em slates, Homecoming Heat, and Fifth Quarter Wall votes are free to enter, carry no prizes, and no money ever attaches to an engagement mechanic. Votes are tied to your device, not your name.
• Homecoming pages show verified dates, venues, and events where verified, and say plainly "schedule unconfirmed" where a detail is not verified. We do not invent a time, venue, or lineup.
• Uploads (when open) let you post photos and videos you own or have the right to share. Uploaded files are stored as described in the Privacy Policy, Section 5. Uploads are not open today.
• LIVE and watch parties (when open) are login-gated, follow the published live rules, and carry a stream delay and a kill switch. Going live is not open today.
• There are no direct messages and no private one-to-one channel on the Yard, under any name, ever. If a feature ever looks like private messaging, it is not part of this Service and should be reported.
• Information published here is informational only — not financial, legal, or medical advice. We verify before we publish and correct what we get wrong, but we make no warranty as to the accuracy, completeness, or reliability of any information.

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3. Accounts

Accounts, when they open, are subject to these rules:

• 18 and older only. The age screen runs before any personal information is collected, and the raw date of birth is never stored, logged, or kept — only a yes/no result, the method, and the time.
• One account per person. You are responsible for your account, your content, and your conduct on it. Keep your sign-in credentials safe; activity on your account is treated as yours unless you report a compromise promptly.
• Accurate profile information. The school, band, section, or era you rep must be yours to claim. Impersonating another person, band, or school is prohibited.
• No account sharing to evade enforcement. Creating a new account to dodge a strike, timeout, or ban is itself a violation and is handled under Section 8.
• Closing your account. You may delete your account from your profile or the data-deletion page when accounts launch. Deletion follows the clocks in the Privacy Policy, Section 10 (live systems within 14 days; all copies, including every archive part, within 30 days), with the closed list of records that outlive an account.

No account is required to browse, and browsing never requires an account.

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4. Your content — you keep it, we host it

You retain all rights to the tips, clips, posts, photos, and videos you submit. Nothing in these Terms transfers ownership of your content to RodwellHQ.

By submitting content, you grant RodwellHQ a narrow, non-exclusive license solely to operate the Service: to host, store, display, distribute, and process your content on the site and in its backup and archive copies, and to use it for the site's own features (for example, showing a Wall submission on the Wall). That license:

• does not transfer ownership;
• does not let RodwellHQ sell your content, license it to advertisers, or use it outside the Service;
• ends for live display when you delete the content or your account, except for copies that remain only until the deletion clocks in the Privacy Policy, Section 10, run out, and for records kept under a legal hold.

By submitting content, you represent that you own it or have the right to share it, and that it does not violate these Terms or anyone else's rights. RodwellHQ may remove content that violates these Terms, and will act promptly on valid takedown requests, including requests from a parent or school for footage of a minor.

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5. Yard Talk and the Wall — member speech, not ours

The Yard Talk board and the Wall are member speech: things members posted under their nicknames, marked unverified where they are member posts. It is what they said — not what the site verified, endorses, or claims is true. Do not treat member tips as facts.

If you submit a tip, it is attributed to your nickname and you stand behind it. Tips that accuse real named people of wrongdoing, involve minors, or contain hate will not be posted. Host posts are labeled as host posts and follow the published host rules: stay on the subject of the videos on the Wall, ask one pointed question per reply, and redirect off-topic posts.

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6. Acceptable use — what you may not do

You agree not to use the Service to:

• (a) engage in or facilitate illegal activity;
• (b) seek instructions or assistance related to weapons of any kind;
• (c) commit or facilitate fraud, scams, or deception;
• (d) cause harm to people or property;
• (e) produce or share sexual content involving minors, or any content that names, rates, or roasts a depicted minor;
• (f) harass, threaten, or target third parties or real named individuals;
• (g) post another person's private information (address, phone number, email, financial or account details) without their consent;
• (h) impersonate another person, band, school, or RodwellHQ;
• (i) attempt to disrupt, overload, scrape in a way that degrades the Service, or reverse-engineer the Service;
• (j) evade a strike, timeout, ban, or other enforcement action, including by creating a new account;
• (k) use any private-messaging workaround, or present any off-site private channel as part of the Yard.

Protected characteristics, discrimination or accessibility complaints, and appeal filings are never cause for enforcement and are never moderation inputs.

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7. Strikes ladder — how rule-breaking is handled

We do not suspend or terminate access "at any time, for any reason." Suspension or termination is for cause under these Terms and the published Community & Live Rules, administered through the strikes ladder:

warn → 24-hour live timeout → live ban → site ban

• Each step states the rule broken and the specific content or conduct behind it.
• No ban-length step (live ban, site ban, or any timeout over 24 hours) takes effect without prior human review of the specific content, rule, conduct category, and strike history. Automated systems and the Host may flag, pause distribution, and recommend only.
• Reports pause distribution but never auto-kill a post or stream. A report is a flag for review, not a verdict.
• Every sustained action carries notice and an appeal route, reviewed by someone other than the original decision-maker where practicable, with the outcome logged.
• Emergency interim suspension is the one exception — for child-safety matters, credible threats, active fraud or account takeover, legal process, or an ongoing technical attack — and it receives post-action human review within 3 business days, or it lapses to the sustained ladder step.
• Sections on intellectual property, limitation of liability, and indemnification survive termination.

A named second human is the launch gate for LIVE and uploads: ban-length and live decisions are not a one-person operation once those features open. That second human is not named here; naming them is a launch gate before LIVE and uploads open.

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8. Picks and contests — free, no prizes, no money

Pick'em slates, Homecoming Heat, Fifth Quarter Wall votes, and any other engagement mechanic on the Service are governed by these rules, mirrored on the Picks & Contests Rulebook page:

• Free entry. No purchase, payment, or consideration is ever required to enter or vote.
• No prizes. No cash, goods, or value of any kind is awarded.
• No consideration. Nothing of value is exchanged in either direction.
• No money ever attaches to an engagement mechanic. Votes, picks, streaks, and tallies are not currency, not redeemable, and not transferable.
• One vote per device where the rules say so, enforced by a device-token hash, not by name.
• Percentages stay hidden until a poll reaches 10 votes where the rules say so, so an early vote is never presented as a crowd.

If any future mechanic ever involves money, it will ship under its own separately published rules and its own acceptance — never by silently changing this section.

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9. Intellectual property

Our content: the Service, including its design, text, graphics, and branding, is owned by RodwellHQ LLC and protected by intellectual property laws. You may not copy, reproduce, or redistribute it except as permitted by law.

Your content: you retain all rights, as Section 4 states. The license you grant is narrow, for hosting and display to operate the Service, and transfers no ownership.

Third-party content: band clips, scores, headlines, and school facts are credited to their sources where shown. Nothing here grants you rights in anyone else's content.

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10. Your content and the law — takedowns

If you believe content on the Service infringes your rights, or depicts a minor in a way that should come down, contact us at the address in Section 16 with the specific content, where it appears, and why it should come down. We act promptly on valid requests. Repeat infringers are handled under the strikes ladder. A DMCA agent and a child-safety reporting protocol are launch gates before uploads open; they are not named here yet.

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11. Limitation of liability

Cap. To the maximum extent permitted by applicable law, RodwellHQ's total liability for any claim arising from your use of the Service shall not exceed the greater of (a) the amounts you paid to RodwellHQ in the 12 months before the claim, or (b) $100. Because the Service is currently free, that cap is $100 for a user who has paid nothing.

Printed carve-outs — the cap does not apply to:

• (a) liability arising from RodwellHQ's gross negligence or willful misconduct;
• (b) liability that cannot be limited or excluded under applicable law;
• (c) any amount a court of competent jurisdiction finally determines is not subject to this cap.

Types of damages. To the maximum extent permitted by applicable law, RodwellHQ is not liable for indirect, incidental, special, consequential, or punitive damages arising from your use of the Service, subject to the same carve-outs above.

"As is." The Service is provided "as is" without warranties of any kind, express or implied, including warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, and non-infringement, except where the law does not permit such a disclaimer.

Breach, leak, and unauthorized access. RodwellHQ uses reasonable safeguards, as the Privacy Policy, Section 7, states. RodwellHQ is not liable for unauthorized access to, or disclosure, loss, or alteration of, user data that occurs despite those reasonable safeguards, or for failures of third-party infrastructure that are beyond RodwellHQ's reasonable control — except where the carve-outs above apply (gross negligence, willful misconduct, or liability that cannot be limited by law). This section is a limitation, not absolute immunity: it does not protect RodwellHQ for its own gross negligence or willful misconduct, and it does not shorten any legal duty to notify affected users or authorities after an incident.

Member content. RodwellHQ is not liable for member speech on Talk or the Wall, which is unverified and not endorsed, except as the law requires.

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12. Indemnification

You agree to indemnify and hold harmless RodwellHQ LLC from claims, damages, and reasonable expenses arising from your misuse of the Service, your violation of these Terms, or your content — except to the extent the claim arises from RodwellHQ's own gross negligence or willful misconduct. Nothing here requires you to indemnify RodwellHQ for its own wrongdoing.

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13. Disputes — no arbitration, no class waiver at launch

These Terms do not require arbitration, and they do not waive class actions. At launch, disputes are resolved in court, not in private arbitration, and no class-action waiver applies.

Governing law: The laws of the State of North Carolina.

Forum: The state and federal courts located in North Carolina.

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14. Changes to the Service and these Terms

We may modify or discontinue the Service. We may update these Terms, subject to these rules:

• Material changes get 30 days' advance notice on the site.
• For account holders, a material change requires blocking re-acceptance: the changed Terms are presented in full, and no changed term applies to you before the change's effective date and your new checkbox acceptance with a new consent receipt.
• Non-material changes (clarifications, contact updates, typo fixes) take effect on the date posted.
• Continued browsing alone never accepts a material change. The old rule — "continued use means you accept" — does not apply to material changes under these Terms.
• If these Terms and the Privacy Policy ever conflict on data handling, the provision more protective of you controls.

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15. Termination

RodwellHQ may suspend or terminate access only for cause under Section 7's strikes ladder, except for the emergency interim suspension described there. You may stop using the Service and delete your account at any time. Sections 4 (license tail for deletion clocks and legal holds), 9, 11, 12, and 13 survive termination.

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16. Severability and contact

If any provision of these Terms is found unenforceable, the remaining provisions continue in full effect.

Questions about these Terms, or a takedown or appeal request:

• Email: support@yards.fyi
• Site contact page: yards.fyi/contact (available now; this page will list the email address when it is published)

Operator: RodwellHQ LLC.

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Published October 26, 2026. Pending licensed North Carolina attorney review before accounts, uploads, or LIVE open publicly.