Community Guidelines

There are three layers of rules on Boznaw, and all three apply at once:

1. 1

   The law

   Nothing on Boznaw may be unlawful under Indian law. This layer is not negotiable and not subject to a Community's preference.

2. 2

   These Guidelines

   They apply everywhere on Boznaw — every Community, every comment thread, every direct message, every profile.

3. 3

   Each Community's own rules

   A Community can add rules on top: stay on topic, summarise your links, use the right tag. It cannot subtract from the two layers above.

• Write as though the people you are writing about are reading. On a local forum, they usually are.
• Disagree with the argument. Attack a claim as hard as you like. Do not attack the person making it.
• Post where it belongs. A Community exists because someone wanted a place for that subject. Use it.
• Say who you are when it matters. If you have a stake in what you are posting about — you sell it, you work there, you are related to the person — say so.
• Be careful with other people's information. Somebody else's address, phone number, workplace or photograph is theirs to publish, not yours.
• Correct yourself. Editing a post to fix a mistake is good practice. Editing it to hide what you said and make replies look absurd is not.

3.1 Threats and violence

Do not threaten to harm anyone, wish harm on them, ask someone else to harm them, or celebrate violence already done to them. Do not post credible plans to commit violence. This applies to individuals and to groups.

3.2 Harassment and bullying

Do not target a person with repeated unwanted contact, insults, mockery of their appearance or circumstances, or sexual comments they did not invite. Do not follow someone from thread to thread to keep an argument going. Do not organise or join a pile-on. Do not use direct messages to reach someone who has made it clear they do not want to hear from you.

One sharp comment in a heated thread is not harassment. A pattern aimed at one person is.

3.3 Hate and discriminatory abuse

Do not attack, demean or dehumanise a person or group because of religion, caste, race, ethnicity, place of origin, language, sex, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, disability or age. Do not call for their exclusion, and do not post slurs.

Discussing religion, caste, politics or identity is not prohibited — this forum would be pointless if it were. Abusing people over them is.

3.4 Terrorism and violent extremism

Do not post content that promotes, glorifies, or provides support, recruitment or instruction for a terrorist or violent extremist organisation or act.

3.5 Self-harm and suicide

Do not encourage anyone to hurt or kill themselves, and do not post instructions for doing so. Talking about your own experience, or asking for help, is welcome — and if you are reporting a post because you are worried about the person who wrote it, say so in the report so a moderator can prioritise it.

Also prohibited without exception:

• Non-consensual intimate imagery — intimate or sexual images or video of a person shared without their consent, including images captured without their knowledge and images that have been altered to appear intimate.
• Sexual extortion — threatening to publish intimate material to obtain money, further material, or anything else.
• Sexual exploitation and trafficking — advertising, arranging or soliciting commercial sexual services or trafficking.
• Unsolicited sexual content — sending sexual images or messages to someone who did not ask for them.

If intimate imagery of you has been posted here, report it and mark it urgent. We are required to remove such material within a very short statutory window, and we treat it as the highest priority. See Grievance Redressal.

4.1 Adult content generally

Boznaw is a general-audience forum. Explicit sexual content is not permitted in Communities that are not marked mature. Where a Community is marked mature, content must still be lawful and consensual, and must be posted with the mature flag so other people's content settings can work.

• No impersonation. Do not present yourself as another person, a business, a government body, a news outlet or a public official. A parody or fan account is fine if it is obvious from the profile that it is one.
• No fraud or scams. No fake sales, fake job offers, advance-fee requests, fake charity appeals, investment or trading schemes, or anything else designed to separate someone from their money.
• No phishing. Do not post links or forms that collect passwords, one-time codes or payment details under false pretences.
• No malware. Do not post files or links that install unwanted software or exploit a device.
• Label synthetic media. If you post audio or video that was generated or altered by a computer so that it looks or sounds real, say so when you post it. Boznaw is required to label such content — see the Content Policy.

Do not publish another person's private information without their consent. That includes home address, personal phone number, personal email address, government identity numbers, financial account details, medical information, precise location or movements, and identity documents.

Do not publish photographs or recordings of a person in a private setting without their consent, and do not encourage other people to find or contact someone.

• No spam. No repeated posting of the same thing, no posting the same link across many Communities, no referral or affiliate spam, no engagement bait.
• No vote manipulation. Do not use extra accounts to vote on your own Content, do not ask other people to vote on a specific post, and do not organise or join a group that does.
• No fake engagement. Do not buy, sell, trade or solicit votes, followers, accounts or Communities.
• No coordinated manipulation. Do not work with others to make a view appear more widely held than it is, to flood a Community, or to drive a person off the forum.
• No ban evasion. If an account of yours is suspended, do not make another one to get around it.
• No abuse of the report button. Do not report Content you simply disagree with, and do not organise mass reporting of a person. False reporting wastes the time that real reports need.

Do not post work that belongs to someone else without permission, and do not link to pirated material. Quoting a passage, or posting a short extract with a link and credit to the source, is ordinarily fine; reproducing a whole article, photograph set, book, film or song is not.

Do not use another person's trade mark in a way that suggests they are behind your account or your post.

If something of yours has been posted here without permission, the Copyright Policy explains how to have it removed.

• No instructions for making weapons, explosives or other things designed to hurt people.
• No sale of firearms, ammunition, explosives, drugs or other regulated goods.
• No content promoting dangerous challenges likely to get somebody injured.
• No content that encourages breaking a law, or helps somebody else break one.

Discussing any of these subjects — reporting on them, analysing them, arguing about the law — is not prohibited. Facilitating them is.

Creating a Community makes you its moderator. That comes with obligations:

• Publish your Community's rules so members can actually follow them.
• Apply them consistently. Do not use moderation to win an argument you are a party to.
• Work through the report queue. A Community whose reports are ignored may be reassigned or closed.
• Do not use moderator tools to harass a member, or to conceal Content that must be removed under these Guidelines.
• Mark your Community as mature at creation if that is what it is.

Moderators act in their own capacity, not on our behalf. We may step in where a Community is being run contrary to these Guidelines.

Enforcement is proportionate. What we do depends on what happened, how serious it was, whether it looks deliberate, and whether it has happened before.

You can appeal any of these. The Content Moderation Policy explains how decisions are made, and Grievance Redressal explains how to challenge one.

1. 1

   Use the report control

   Every post, comment and profile has a Report item in its menu. Reporting from that menu tells us exactly what you are reporting, which matters more than a description.

2. 2

   Pick the closest reason

   It routes the report and sets its priority. If nothing fits, pick the nearest and explain in the note.

3. 3

   Add what a moderator would not know

   Context, a link to an earlier thread, or the fact that this is the fourth message from the same person this week. The note is optional but it is usually what decides a borderline case.

4. 4

   Escalate if it is urgent

   For an immediate risk to someone's safety, for intimate imagery, or for content involving a minor, also write to the Grievance Officer so it is handled on the urgent track.

Reports are confidential. The person you report is not told who reported them.

You can also block or mute a User from their profile. Blocking stops their messages and hides their Content from you; muting hides their Content without notifying them. Neither is a substitute for reporting something that breaks these Guidelines.