Terms of use | Quotogeny

Approved on 24 October 2026.

These terms apply when you use quotogeny.com, and above all when you sign in and comment. Quotogeny is made by Van Riel Online Services, Schiedamse Vest 154, 3011 BH Rotterdam, the Netherlands (KvK 92029418). What we keep about you is in the privacy statement.

What Quotogeny is

An atlas of quotations, each traced to where it comes from. Entries are researched by AI agents and checked by a program; an editor reviews them over time, and every entry says whether that has happened yet. We work to get them right but cannot promise that every one is: look at the source before you rely on an entry, and tell us when we are wrong. How we check

Your account

To comment or to check an entry, you sign in with a Google account. You must be 16 or older. Use your own account, and only for yourself.

You can delete your account at any time, on the sign-in page. That deletes your comments and checks too. If you would rather keep your comments up without your name, write to info@vanriel.eu first.

What a comment may be

A comment is about the quote on its page: evidence of where the words are, a correction, where you saw the quote, or a question about it. A comment may not contain:

anything illegal, such as defamation or an infringement of someone’s copyright;
hatred of a group, harassment or threats, against anyone;
someone else’s personal data, such as an address, a phone number or an e-mail address;
advertising, spam, or links that promote something;
instructions aimed at our AI screen or at the people who moderate;
whole passages from books or translations still in copyright. A sentence or two quoted as evidence, with where it is from, is fine.

A comment holds at most 2 links. We do not edit comments: we publish one as it was written, or not at all.

How comments are moderated

Every comment goes through three steps: rules in our code (for example: more than 2 links, or an e-mail address), an AI screen (Jev, by TypeSafe), and a person. The rules and the AI screen may refuse a comment that clearly breaks these terms, but they never publish one: nothing appears until a person at Quotogeny has read it and published it.

We may refuse a comment, or remove one later, when it breaks these terms or the law. When we do, we tell you why, beside your comment on the quote’s page, where you see it when you are signed in. We do not explain refusing what is plainly automated spam.

Anyone can report a published comment with its Report button. Reports from 3 different people take a comment offline until we have looked at it again.

Checking an entry

When you are signed in, you can check an entry against its source and say what you found, under a name you choose: you approve it (the words are in the source the entry cites, said by whom it says, in the context it gives), or you could not confirm it. Either way you give your reason: what you checked, and where. Your check is shown on the quote’s page and on the list of approvers, with your name, your reason and the date.

Approve only what you checked yourself, in the source. Do not approve an entry because it seems right, or because others did.
Use one account, under your own name or a name that is clearly yours. Do not take the name of someone else, of an institution or of Quotogeny.
The rules for comments apply to your reason and your name (see above).

A check is given for the entry as it was that day. When the entry changes, your check stays, marked as being for an earlier version, and you can check it again. A check does not change an entry’s verdict or its editorial review: those stay ours. Your first 3 checks, and checks after you change your name, are read by a person before they appear; after that a check that passes the rules and the AI screen appears at once. We may withdraw a check, or take someone off the list of approvers, when these terms are broken, and we tell you why, as for comments.

Reporting illegal content

If you think a comment or a check is illegal, report it as illegal with its Report button, or write to info@vanriel.eu. Say which comment or check it is (its address, or the quote and the writer), explain why you think it is illegal, and confirm that your report is accurate and made in good faith. You may add your name and e-mail address; then we tell you what we decided. We look at every such report promptly and remove what is illegal.

Something of our own rather than a comment or a check, such as a quote, a translation, a picture or a reading? See copyright and takedown.

If you disagree with a decision

If we refused or removed your comment or check, or did not act on your report, and you disagree, write to info@vanriel.eu within six months. A person looks at it again and answers you. You can also go to court.

Your rights in your comments

You keep the copyright in what you write. By posting a comment or a check, you give Van Riel Online Services a free, non-exclusive licence, for the whole world, to publish it with your name on Quotogeny (the website and what is made from its pages, such as their plain-text versions), for as long as the privacy statement says we keep it, and to use what it says to improve our entries. You can ask us to take your comment or check down at any time.

Responsibility

Quotogeny is free and offered as it is. We are not liable for damage from using it, except where the law does not allow us to exclude it, such as for intent or gross negligence. Comments and checks are their writers’ own. We are responsible for them as the law makes a host responsible: we act when we learn that one is illegal.

Contact point

Our single point of contact for users and for authorities (Digital Services Act, articles 11 and 12) is info@vanriel.eu, in English or Dutch.

Changes, and the law that applies

We may change these terms; the date above says when they were last approved. Changes apply to what you post after them, and you can always delete your account. Dutch law applies. Disputes go to the court in Rotterdam, unless the law gives you the right, as a consumer, to go to the court where you live.