TERN1 Community Guidelines
Last Updated: September 29, 2026
TERN1 is a place for people who care about machines.
Cars, trucks, motorcycles, bicycles, boats, forgotten models, strange engineering, ambitious builds, ordinary daily drivers, immaculate showpieces, and the stories attached to them all belong here.
You don’t need the rarest car, the biggest collection, or the most technical knowledge to participate.
You do need to contribute in good faith.
1. Add Something Worth Keeping
TERN1 is being built as a lasting resource, not a disposable feed.
Comments, Garage entries, Archive contributions, photographs, and Classified listings should add something useful, interesting, or genuine.
Don’t deliberately fill TERN1 with:
- Nonsense or joke submissions;
- Fake vehicles or specifications;
- Placeholder entries;
- Repeated or duplicate content;
- Spam;
- Unrelated advertising;
- Deliberately misleading information; or
- Low-effort submissions intended only to clutter or disrupt the site.
You don’t have to know everything.
If you’re unsure about something, say so. An honest “I believe this changed in 1998” is more useful than presenting a guess as fact.
2. Respect the Machines. Respect the People.
Enthusiasts disagree.
People will prefer different manufacturers, eras, modifications, styles, technologies, and approaches to ownership. Technical disagreements are also inevitable.
Debate the subject without attacking the person.
Don’t:
- Harass or threaten other users;
- Target people with personal attacks;
- Use hateful or discriminatory language;
- Repeatedly antagonize another user;
- Sexually harass users;
- Encourage violence;
- Organize harassment; or
- Deliberately derail discussions.
Criticizing a build, modification, vehicle, argument, or technical claim is allowed.
Turning that disagreement into abuse of the person behind it isn’t.
3. Keep Usernames and Profiles Appropriate
Your username doesn’t need to be serious.
It does need to be suitable for a general enthusiast community.
Don’t create usernames, display names, profile images, or profiles that are:
- Obscene or sexually explicit;
- Hateful or threatening;
- Intended to harass another person;
- Impersonating someone else;
- Pretending to represent TERN1;
- Advertising spam or scams; or
- Deliberately disruptive.
TERN1 may require inappropriate usernames or profile content to be changed.
4. Protect Personal Information
Don’t publicly post sensitive personal information about yourself or anyone else.
That includes:
- Home addresses;
- Private phone numbers or email addresses;
- Financial information;
- Passwords;
- Government identification numbers;
- Driver’s licenses;
- Signatures;
- Private documents;
- Precise private locations; or
- Other information that could compromise someone’s privacy or security.
Check photographs before uploading them. Paperwork, shipping labels, computer screens, addresses, and other personal information can appear in the background without you noticing.
Never publish another person’s private information without permission.
VINs Stay Private
TERN1 provides a dedicated private field for vehicle identification numbers.
Put a VIN there and nowhere else.
Do not post complete VINs in comments, Garage descriptions, Archive submissions, Classified listings, profiles, captions, or other public fields.
Making a Garage vehicle public does not make its stored VIN public.
5. Keep the Archive Accurate
The TERN1 Archive is intended to become a reliable record of machines and their history.
If you contribute to it, contribute in good faith.
Don’t knowingly invent:
- Models;
- Generations;
- Trim levels;
- Engines;
- Specifications;
- Production numbers;
- Dates;
- Technical information; or
- Other vehicle data.
Sources are encouraged whenever practical, particularly for obscure, disputed, or highly specific information.
Corrections are welcome.
Being wrong isn’t a violation of the rules. Knowingly adding bad information is.
TERN1 may correct, combine, reorganize, reject, or remove Archive contributions to keep the database useful.
6. Your Garage Should Represent Real Machines
Garage is for documenting individual machines.
Project cars are welcome.
Non-running cars are welcome.
Half-finished builds are welcome.
Bicycles pulled out of a shed after fifteen years are welcome.
Daily drivers are welcome.
Immaculate showpieces are welcome.
The rare, the ordinary, the pristine, the modified, and the perpetually unfinished all have a place here.
But don’t create fake Garage entries, falsely claim someone else’s vehicle, manipulate ownership histories, or intentionally misrepresent a machine’s mileage, identity, condition, provenance, or history.
A Garage should tell the story of the machine as accurately as you reasonably can.
7. Classifieds Require Good Faith
If you’re selling something through TERN1, describe it accurately.
Don’t intentionally misrepresent:
- Condition;
- Fitment;
- Mileage;
- Authenticity;
- Ownership;
- Vehicle history;
- Part numbers; or
- Known material problems.
Don’t list stolen property, counterfeit goods, fake listings, prohibited items, or something you don’t have the right to sell.
Don’t use misleading prices simply to manipulate search results.
And don’t put your home address, VIN, financial information, or other sensitive information in the listing.
TERN1 is an enthusiast community first. Treat buyers and sellers accordingly.
8. Don’t Spam
Don’t use TERN1 primarily to:
- Flood comments with promotions;
- Post repetitive links;
- Create fake engagement;
- Mass-message users;
- Manipulate search results;
- Create duplicate Classified listings;
- Promote unrelated products or services; or
- Funnel users toward scams or deceptive websites.
Relevant businesses, products, shops, parts sources, and services can naturally be discussed when they are actually relevant to the conversation.
9. Post What You Have the Right to Post
Don’t upload photographs, articles, manuals, documents, artwork, or other material you don’t have the right to share.
When discussing information from another source, credit the source where appropriate.
Don’t remove watermarks or attribution for the purpose of presenting someone else’s work as your own.
10. Help Improve TERN1
If you find incorrect information, report it or submit a correction.
If you see spam, scams, harassment, exposed personal information, or suspicious Classified listings, report them instead of escalating the situation yourself.
TERN1 may review reports and take action based on the circumstances.
11. Moderation
TERN1 may:
- Correct or remove content;
- Hide inappropriate material;
- Remove exposed personal information;
- Require profile or username changes;
- Restrict commenting;
- Restrict Archive contributions;
- Restrict Classifieds access;
- Temporarily suspend accounts; or
- Permanently remove accounts.
Not every mistake deserves a ban.
An incorrect specification submitted in good faith is different from deliberately vandalizing the Archive. A heated disagreement is different from sustained harassment. Context, severity, intent, and previous behavior may all be considered.
Serious abuse, fraud, security threats, privacy violations, or deliberate vandalism may result in immediate action without a warning.
12. The TERN1 Standard
Before posting something, ask:
Is it genuine?
Is it useful, interesting, or relevant?
Am I comfortable associating this with my TERN1 account?
If the answer is yes, it probably belongs here.
In Short
Bring the weird car.
Bring the ordinary car.
Bring the show car nobody is allowed to breathe on.
Bring the bicycle you rebuilt in your garage.
Bring the obscure specification nobody else bothered to document.
Bring the argument about why a manufacturer made a strange engineering decision.
Just bring it in good faith.
Don’t spam. Don’t scam. Don’t harass people. Don’t expose personal information. Don’t deliberately pollute the Archive.