Community rules
The rules of this place.
Eight rules, and they are the same eight the report control offers. Somebody reporting something picks one of these; a moderator deciding a report says which one was broken. There is no ninth rule kept somewhere else.
- Version
- draft-1-pending-owner-signoff
- In force since
- Not yet published as a numbered revision.
This wording has not been signed off yet, and the version above says so instead of reading like a settled document. What it describes is how reports, decisions, and appeals already work today.
What this page is, and what it is not
This page is about conduct — what people may and may not do here, and what happens when somebody does it anyway. It is not the terms of service and not the privacy notice. It makes no promise about your account, your data, or payments; the terms of service and the privacy notice do, and both are linked in the footer of every page.
The eight rules
Rule 1
Spam and scams
Repetitive posting, bulk unsolicited messages, engagement bait, and anything built to take money or credentials from somebody. Publishing your own course is not spam; flooding communities with links to it is.
For example
- The same link posted into six communities within an hour.
- A direct message promising a payout in exchange for a fee or a login.
What breaking this can lead to
- What was reported stops being shown
- What was reported is taken down
- A warning on your record
- Your account is suspended
- You are banned from the community it happened in
Rule 2
Harassment and bullying
Going after a person: insults aimed at somebody, pile-ons, contact that continues after they asked it to stop, threats, and posting somebody's private details. Disagreeing with what a person said is not harassment; following them around the product to keep saying it is.
For example
- Repeated comments about somebody's appearance or accent under their lesson.
- Messaging somebody from a second account after they blocked the first.
What breaking this can lead to
- What was reported stops being shown
- What was reported is taken down
- A warning on your record
- Your account is suspended
- You are banned from the community it happened in
Rule 3
Hate speech
Attacking people for who they are — race, ethnicity, national origin, religion, disability, sex, gender identity, or sexual orientation. Slurs, dehumanising comparisons, and calls to exclude people on those grounds are all covered. Teaching about prejudice, including quoting it in order to examine it, is not the same as directing it at somebody.
For example
- A slur used about a group, whether or not anybody from it is reading.
- A comment saying people of some nationality should not be allowed to enroll.
What breaking this can lead to
- What was reported stops being shown
- What was reported is taken down
- A warning on your record
- Your account is suspended
- You are banned from the community it happened in
Rule 4
Sexual content
This is an adults-only product and it is still not a place for sexual content. Explicit material, sexual attention nobody asked for, and any sexualisation of a minor are all out. Course material covering anatomy, health, or sexuality for a teaching purpose is not: the difference is whether it is there to teach.
For example
- Explicit images or text in a post, a comment, or a direct message.
- Sexual remarks directed at another learner.
What breaking this can lead to
- What was reported stops being shown
- What was reported is taken down
- A warning on your record
- Your account is suspended
- You are banned from the community it happened in
Rule 5
Self-harm and suicide
Content that encourages somebody to hurt themselves, or that supplies a method. When this rule is enforced the content stops being shown and nothing else happens — the person a report like this is about is the person the rule protects, and taking their account away is not help. HxAi is not an emergency service: if somebody is in danger right now, contact local emergency services.
For example
- A post encouraging somebody to hurt themselves.
- Methods or instructions, however they are framed.
What breaking this can lead to
- What was reported stops being shown
Enforcing this rule never puts a restriction on the person it is about.
Rule 6
False information
Material presented as fact that is plainly false and could hurt somebody who acted on it — an unsafe procedure taught as safe, a false claim about medicine or protective equipment. Nothing here adjudicates truth in general: no moderator is a fact-checker and this product counts no sources, so this rule stops at the content and never reaches an account.
For example
- A lesson that drops a safety step and calls it optional.
- A health claim presented as settled when it is not.
What breaking this can lead to
- What was reported stops being shown
- What was reported is taken down
- A warning on your record
Rule 7
Copyright
Publishing somebody else's work as your own — a lesson, a video, slides, images, or text you have no right to use. A rights complaint asks for the work to come down, so this rule takes content down rather than hiding it. This product counts nobody's repeat infringements, so nothing here promises a rule about them.
For example
- A lesson built out of another course's video.
- Slides using images the publisher has no licence for.
What breaking this can lead to
- What was reported is taken down
- A warning on your record
Rule 8
Something else
The backstop, and it is deliberately as wide as the widest rule above. If somebody is doing something that clearly does not belong here and none of the seven named rules fits it, this is what it is reported under. A backstop narrower than what it backs would leave conduct reportable, upheld, and unenforceable.
For example
- Impersonating an instructor or an organization.
- Working around a restriction a decision already placed on an account.
What breaking this can lead to
- What was reported stops being shown
- What was reported is taken down
- A warning on your record
- Your account is suspended
- You are banned from the community it happened in
What happens when a rule is broken
A report is not a decision, and nothing on this list happens automatically. This is the whole path, in order.
Somebody reports it
A report names one of the eight rules and opens a case for a moderator. On its own it hides nothing and changes no account.
The case is given a severity
The rule that was named decides it. Self-harm is urgent; harassment, hate, and sexual content are high; spam is low; everything else is normal.
One moderator takes it
A moderator claims the case, and only that moderator can decide it. What they are shown is a snapshot of what was reported, taken when it was reported — and opening it records who looked, when, and for which case.
One decision, written down once
The action, any restriction it carries, the outcome of the report, the notification, and the record of it are all written together or not at all. The moderator has to give a reason, and that reason names the rule.
You are told
If a decision is about you, you are notified and you can read what was decided and why.
Everything a decision can be
Six outcomes and no others. The first is a real finding rather than a failure to act, and it is the one no rule above lists — because “this broke no rule” is not a consequence of breaking one.
- Nothing happens, because the report does not stand
- What was reported stops being shown
- What was reported is taken down
- A warning on your record
- Your account is suspended
- You are banned from the community it happened in
What severity does, and what it does not do
Severity decides what a case is called and how quickly it should be picked up, not where it appears in the queue: the queue is ordered oldest-first and re-ranked by severity only within the page a moderator is looking at, so an urgent case filed behind older reports can sit on a later page.
How long a report waits
These are the times we aim for, not promises the product keeps for us: nothing here starts a timer when a report arrives, nothing measures how long a case waited, and nothing tells anybody when one of these days passes.
- Urgent — a first look within 1 day
- High — a first look within 3 days
- Normal — a first look within 7 days
- Low — a first look within 14 days
What the queue does guarantee is the other half: the case that has waited longest is always the first row of the first page, so nothing is left behind by working through it in order.
If a decision is about you
You are told what was decided and given the reason the moderator wrote. The reason names the rule that was broken. It does not quote what anybody wrote about you, and nothing the product shows you names whoever reported it.
Asking for a decision to be looked at again
An appeal is a second look at a decision by somebody who did not make it. It is not a new report and it is not a reply to the moderator: what you write is read by whoever reviews the decision, and it is the one thing you get to say before they do.
Only the person a decision was taken about can appeal it — not whoever reported it, and nobody on your behalf. The product refuses everybody else, and it refuses a decision that does not exist in exactly the same words, so an appeal cannot be used to find out whether somebody else was moderated.
You have 90 days from a decision to ask for it to be reviewed.
The window does not close while the sanction the decision produced is still live. A scheduled or active sanction keeps the appeal open however old the decision is; an expired or revoked one does not.
One appeal per decision. A second one against the same decision is refused rather than queued, so say everything you want said the first time.
A different moderator reads it. The one who made the decision can never decide its appeal — the product refuses that, rather than merely discouraging it.
That rule has a cost we would rather tell you about than hide: the moderating team here is small, so if the only moderator who could take your appeal is the one who decided your case, nobody can decide it yet and it waits until somebody else holds the role. It is never handed back to the person who made the decision.
A suspended account can still sign in, and the sign-in page carries the decision, the reason given, and a box to write in.
An appeal can leave the decision standing, undo it, or shorten a restriction. It can never lengthen one.
Undoing a decision is one act rather than a promise to tidy up afterwards: the restriction is lifted and whatever was hidden or taken down goes back, in the same moment the appeal is decided.
Nothing here runs on a clock, so no message will arrive to say your window is nearly up or that a suspension has ended. Both are worked out from dates instead: the window runs from the day of the decision, and the sign-in page shows when a suspension ends.
If you want to report something
Posts, comments, profiles, communities, course reviews, and direct messages carry a “Safety options” control. Pick the rule that fits, add anything a moderator should know, and send it.
A report goes to moderators. It does not hide anything and does not change an account by itself.
Nothing the product shows the person you reported names you.
There are limits on how often the same thing can be reported, and reporting things that break no rule takes time away from the reports that do.