Code of Conduct

Preservation with Integrity

The 1990 Web Archive exists to capture, maintain, and provide access to the early internet's cultural and technical heritage. This Code of Conduct establishes the ethical and operational standards for all contributors, researchers, and automated systems interacting with our archive.

Rules of Capture & Restoration

All crawling, indexing, and rendering activities must adhere to the following protocols:

• No Modification of Source: Archived HTML, CSS, images, and scripts must remain unaltered. Cosmetic wrappers are permitted only for rendering compatibility and must be clearly separated from original assets.
• Respect robots.txt (Historical): While we archive pre-1998 content, we honor original exclusion directives where they existed and document any overrides for historical significance.
• Contextual Preservation: Frames, meta-refreshes, MIDI backgrounds, and table-based layouts must be rendered as they functioned in their original era. Do not "modernize" for convenience.
• Privacy & PII: Personal data found in guestbooks, early e-commerce logs, or forum exports will be redacted unless explicitly public under period-appropriate norms. We follow ethical digital archaeology standards.

Researcher & Contributor Conduct

The archive is a shared digital commons. All users are expected to:

1. Cite Provenance: When using archived content for academic, commercial, or creative projects, include the snapshot timestamp and archive identifier.
2. Zero Tolerance for Manipulation: Do not alter, forge, or misrepresent archived pages to create false historical narratives. Violations result in immediate access revocation.
3. Respect Rate Limits: Bulk downloads and automated queries must use the official API with authentication. Unauthorized scraping degrades service for historical researchers.
4. Collaborative Tone: Disagreements over preservation methodology are normal. Debate must remain technical, evidence-based, and free of personal attacks.

Violation Protocol

If you encounter content that violates this code, or observe unethical archival practices:

• Submit a report via conduct@1990web.archive
• Include the archive ID, timestamp, and specific section violated
• Reports are triaged within 72 hours by the Preservation Ethics Committee
• Enforcement ranges from warnings to permanent API key revocation, depending on severity and repeat status

Binding Agreement

By accessing the 1990 Web Archive platform, API, or contributor tools, you acknowledge that you have read, understood, and agree to abide by this Code of Conduct. This document is subject to version control and periodic review. The latest signed hash is published at /meta/conduct.sha256.