# terms of service

salix@host:~/terms

Last updated: 8 July 2026

salix.host is a small, community-driven Matrix homeserver run by a private individual, not a company. These terms exist to keep the server healthy and to be honest with you about what data exists and what happens to it. By registering or using an account on salix.host, you agree to them.

The short version

  • Be decent to other people.
  • No illegal content, no spam, no harassment.
  • We collect as little data as technically possible and keep it briefly.
  • Messages you send to federated rooms leave this server. That is how Matrix works.
  • This is a hobby service, offered as-is, with no uptime guarantees.

Rules

These rules apply to everything you do with your salix.host account, on this server and in federated rooms.

  1. No illegal content or activity. This includes, without exception, child sexual abuse material, terrorism-related content, and the distribution of malware. Violations are reported to the authorities.
  2. No harassment or hate. Do not target people with abuse, threats, or discrimination based on who they are.
  3. No spam. No unsolicited mass messages, mass invites, or bulk account registration. Bots are fine if they are invited and well-behaved.
  4. Don’t abuse the infrastructure. No crypto mining relays, no using the media store as free file hosting, no deliberately overloading the server or other servers through it.
  5. One person, reasonable accounts. Personal accounts plus a bot or two is fine. Hoarding usernames is not.
  6. No replying “ok” to a heartfelt paragraph. Anyone who answers a sincere, multi-paragraph message with a single “ok” will be sentenced to reading the entire Matrix specification aloud to a houseplant, including the appendices. This rule is not legally enforceable. The houseplant does not care about your federation edge cases either.

Breaking these rules can lead to a warning, account deactivation, or an immediate ban, depending on severity. Illegal content means immediate removal of the content and the account.

Privacy

We run this server because we believe in private communication, so the data practices are deliberately minimal.

What we do not collect: no email address, no phone number, no real name, no analytics, no trackers, no ads. Registration requires only a username and password.

What necessarily exists on the server:

  • Your username, password hash, and the display name and avatar you set.
  • Messages and files you send, stored so your rooms work. End-to-end encrypted messages are stored in encrypted form and cannot be read by us.
  • IP addresses and client details in short-lived technical logs, used only for debugging and abuse prevention. Logs are deleted after 7 days.
  • Media that is no longer referenced is periodically purged.

Federation: when you participate in a room with users from other homeservers, your username, display name, avatar, and messages are copied to those servers. We cannot control or delete data once it has been replicated elsewhere. This is inherent to any federated network.

Bridges: some rooms are bridged to other networks (IRC, Telegram, and similar). Messages in bridged rooms are copied to those networks under their own terms, outside our control.

Your rights: you can export your data through your Matrix client and you can deactivate your account at any time from your client settings. Deactivation is permanent; your username is retained only to prevent impersonation. For GDPR requests, contact us at the address below.

Moderation

Server administrators can remove content, redact messages, remove users from rooms, and deactivate accounts to enforce these rules. Reports made through your Matrix client are reviewed by a human. We do not proactively read your conversations; we act on reports and on obvious abuse signals.

No guarantees

salix.host is provided free of charge, as-is, and as-available. We do our best to keep it fast, backed up, and online, but this is a volunteer project. Do not rely on it as your only channel for critical or life-safety communication. To the extent permitted by law, we accept no liability for data loss or downtime. If the server ever has to shut down, we will give as much advance notice as possible so you can migrate.

Changes

We may update these terms as the service or the law changes. Meaningful changes are announced in the announcements room and the date at the top of this page is updated.

Contact

Questions, reports, or GDPR requests:

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