Terms for clients
These terms are a working draft until they have been reviewed.
Everything happens inside Scholnova. Messages, files, calls and payments all go through Scholnova. Nobody shares a phone number, an email address, a link or a messaging-app name: messages and file names that contain them are blocked, repeated attempts are reviewed by an administrator, and talking or paying outside Scholnova can lead to removal from the market.
Payments are held until the work is approved. The client pays for a milestone through Scholnova. The money is held by Scholnova, not by the other side. When the work is delivered the client approves it, asks for a limited number of revisions, or does nothing: if the client does not answer within the review period (shown on every delivery), the payment is released automatically. Scholnova keeps a platform fee, shown on every agreement before anybody accepts it, taken from the payee's side.
Agreements are changed only by everybody. An agreement and every change to it (scope, deadline, milestones, the payout split) is a numbered version that counts only after the client and every person involved accepted it. The times are recorded.
Cancelling and refunds. Before work has started, an agreement can be cancelled and everything paid is refunded in full. After work has started, a cancellation is a dispute.
Disputes. Either side can open a dispute. The money for the milestone is frozen and a Scholnova administrator looks at the timeline, the messages, who contributed what and the deliverables, then decides: release the money, refund it, split it, or change how the members of a team share it. The decision is recorded and explained to the people involved.
Reviews and quality. After an agreement is complete both sides can review each other. New students and teams are on probation for a while; afterwards those below the published thresholds get a warning and time to improve, and may be delisted after an administrator's review. A delisting can be appealed.
Behaviour. No harassment, no scams, no fake work, no attempts to take the work or the client outside Scholnova. Administrators can remove people from the market.
As a client you describe the work honestly, fund each milestone before work on it starts, review deliveries fairly and in time, and pay only through Scholnova. You can browse students and teams, ask for the best match for a job, send direct requests and hire several people for one job; each hire has its own agreement. You see students by display name, skills, portfolio and ratings only: their contact details are never shared.