Content shared on the JSTOR website (collectively referred to as the “Services” or by their collective corporate name “ITHAKA”) using our publishing tools, including JSTOR Forum, may be viewed by people from all over the world. We trust our users to be responsible and hope users will respect that trust. Following these Community Guidelines helps to keep the Services a place where people can share ideas and content with the scholarly and academic community.
You might not like everything you see that is shared via our publishing tools; however, we try to provide a platform for academic and educational exchange of information. If you think content violates these community guidelines, or have any questions about these guidelines, please email support@jstor.org.
If content shared via our publishing tools is found to violate these Community Guidelines, we reserve the right to remove material from the Services, hide it from public view, or impose other restrictions at our own discretion (and will notify in advance to the extent practicable). This is an evolving document; we reserve the right to update these Community Guidelines at our discretion.
Here are some common-sense rules to help steer clear of trouble. Please take these rules seriously and try to respect the spirit in which they were created.
- Pornographic content. JSTOR is not for pornography or sexually explicit content that does not have serious educational, literary, artistic, political, or scientific merit. Sexually explicit content involving minors or content that sexually exploits minors is prohibited on the Services. If this describes your content, don’t publish it to the Services.
- Harmful or dangerous content. Content that directly threatens specific individuals is not allowed on JSTOR unless posted for archival or historic purposes. Please do not post documents or images that encourage others to do things that might cause them, or others, injury or harm.
- Hateful or discriminatory content and language. JSTOR are focused on enhancing scholarship and teaching through the sharing of textual, image, and other media content. We don’t support content or language that promotes or condones discrimination or violence against individuals or groups based on race, ethnic origin, religion, disability, gender, age, nationality, veteran status, sexual orientation, gender identity, or other protected classes, or whose primary purpose in sharing with the Services is to maliciously insult or incite hatred on the basis of these core characteristics. We ask you not to post hateful and discriminatory content or language unless the primary purpose for posting this content is to support serious educational, literary, artistic, political, or scientific scholarship. This can be a delicate balancing act, but if the primary purpose of posting your content is to attack a protected group, don’t publish it to the Services. In posting materials containing inflammatory or insensitive content for an allowed purpose, we encourage Institutions to provide information in the metadata or collection description regarding the nature of the content and to give users context for viewing potentially harmful content.
- Disrespectful language. JSTOR provides educational resources, and open content shared publicly on these sites will be viewable by all potential website users, including younger audiences. Please do not use vulgar, lewd, or explicit language in your content or the associated metadata, unless there are serious educational, literary, artistic, political, or scientific reasons for doing so.
- Violent or graphic content. Please do not post violent or gory content that is primarily intended to be shocking, sensational, or gratuitous. If posting graphic image content in a news or documentary context, please provide enough information in the metadata to help people understand what is happening in the image. Please do not encourage others to commit specific acts of violence.
- Privacy. Please do not post personal information about a living person, or images identifying a living person (unless the person is a public figure) without their consent.
- Accuracy. Please focus on accuracy of the metadata and attribution when publishing content. Remember, JSTOR helps facilitate the exchange of academic and educational information, and are relied upon as a teaching resource by the scholarly community.
- External Links. Please do not post content where the primary purpose of sharing the content is to direct users to visit third party websites. Users come to JSTOR to engage with the content item itself on the JSTOR platform. Also, please do not link to third party websites featuring content that violates these Community Guidelines.
- Deceptive Practices. Content intended to impersonate a person or educational institution is not allowed on JSTOR.
- Misinformation. Certain types of misleading or deceptive content with serious risk of egregious harm are not allowed on JSTOR. This includes certain types of misinformation that can cause real-world harm, like promoting harmful remedies or treatments, certain types of technically manipulated or doctored content, or content interfering with democratic processes. We ask you not to post content containing this type of misinformation, unless the primary purpose for posting this content is to support serious educational, literary, artistic, political, or scientific scholarship.