1. As a responsibility of public service, the content of the Silicon Valley Public Access Link should be selected for values of interest, information and enlightenment of all the people of the community. In no case should content be excluded because of the race, gender, or nationality of the social, political or religious views of content sources.
2. SVPAL should present all points of view concerning the problems and issues of our times; none of its content should be proscribed or removed because of partisan or doctrinal disapproval.
3. Censorship should be challenged by SVPAL in the maintenance of its commitment to provide public information and enlightenment.
4. SVPAL should cooperate with all persons and groups concerned with resisting abridgement of free expression and free access to ideas.
5. The right to use of SVPAL should not be denied or abridged on the basis of age, race, religion, national origin or social or political views.
6. In its commitment to education for democratic living, SVPAL should welcome the widest distribution and use of its outlet terminals; they should be available on equal terms to all members of the community.
7. SVPAL should ensure the privacy of content brought by users to the system such as e-mail, and the privacy of meeting areas established by user groups.
8. SVPAL will respect the right of users to hold accounts that limit access to objectionable and controversial content, as well as accounts that are not content-limited except by the standards stated above.

Adapted from the Library Bill of Rights, a policy of the American Library Association, and of various municipalities including the City of San Jose.

* System policies may change at any time and without warning. Any major changes will be notified in the message of the day. Please read this menu from time to time to keep informed of any changes that may occur.

Users arelimited to 2GB of file storage on SVPAL which is be enforced by the quota system. Users who ignore their quota on disk storage may find their disk privileges restricted.

Users are encouraged to remove unneccessary files from SVPAL even if they are under their quota. The quota system will report users who are over their quota on a weekly basis. Users are expected to respond to these reports by deleting files or e-mail as appropriate. User's who persistently stay above their quota will have their disk privileges reduced and restricted.

Users will be limited to 2GB of email. Users will be notified of overages in their mailbox just as with their personal files. Again, users are expected to keep their mailboxes under quota. Failure to comply may cause loss of e-mail and may cause your e-mail privileges to be restricted.

Subscribers are encouraged to use scratch space for large temporary files. (For further info on downloading, see 'Using SVPAL') Files are deleted nightly, oldest files first, until a free space goal is met.

Only one login per account to SVPAL is permitted at any one time. You will receive a warning if you use your account for multiple logins. Persistent abusers may find their accounts terminated.

In order to facilitate access to modems, users who have been logged in for one hour or more may be logged off after a 10 minute and a 5 minute warning. When modems are available, users will not be logged off.

Any user forcibly logged off SVPAL due to one of the above policies will not be allowed to log in for a period of one hour.

Applications for SVPAL accounts will be kept in a locked file cabinet at the SVPAL offices on Hamilton Ave.

User identification will not be recorded electronically and, except where the Directors have established a need for access, will be available only when SVPAL is legally required to produce the identification.

Minors to the age of 18 will provide the signature of a parent/guardian for system access as registered users. The signing parent or guardian is responsible that the account is used in accordance with the standards of SVPAL's Terms of Use.

Every account on SVPAL will have one individual who is the primary contact. This person may share the account only with individuals living in the same household. This primary contact is expected to encourage proper account usage, and will at all times retain overall responsibility for any violation of policies of acceptable use.

The heart of the Silicon Valley Public Access Link is the dedicated volunteers who keep it going. These volunteers include directors who represent volunteers and subscribers in managing the operations of SVPAL. In doing so, Directors will treat each other and all other volunteers with respect, the ordinary, hard-fought give and take of discussion notwithstanding. In particular, the Directors as managers of volunteer committees will not direct, criticize or complain to volunteers in other committees except through the manager-director of that committee.

Faithful adherence to this policy is a prime condition for serving as a Director of SVPAL, and a Director who deliberately or repeatedly violates the policy will be severed from the Board of Directors.

Adopted May 8, 1994 (updated February 1, 2026)