TSR Community Guidelines |
Our community guidelinesWelcome to The Student Room. By using the site, you agree to follow our community guidelines and rules. We encourage open discussions however to enable all our users to enjoy the site you must follow our community guidelines and rules which are set out to ensure safety, diversity, inclusion, and authenticity of our thriving community. Our community guidelines and rules define a set of norms and common code of conduct for The Student Room (TSR) which apply to everyone using the site; they provide guidance on conduct that is and isn’t allowed on site to ensure our community is a welcoming space for everyone. Our community guidelines and rules apply to everyone and to everything on TSR. We proactively enforce these guidelines and rules however we also encourage users to use the tools we provide on TSR to report any content you believe breaks our community guidelines and rules. We may remove or edit any content that breaks our community guidelines and rules and card users accordingly. You will be notified of our decisions and can appeal this in our Ask the Community Staff forum, if you believe you have not broken our community guidelines and rules. Please be respectful when using this forum to speak to community staff. Any form of abusive language or rudeness will not be tolerated. We may suspend or ban accounts that are involved in severe or repeated behaviour that breaks our community guidelines and rules. Ignoring requests from the community staff will also result in a ban. Please refrain from creating further accounts, these will be banned. If you would like to discuss your ban please email [email protected]. If necessary, we will report accounts that are seen to be breaking the law to the relevant legal authorities. TSR has a private messaging feature. Please ensure you do not break our community guidelines and rules whilst using this feature. If you receive private messages that break our community guidelines and rules, we encourage users to report these and our team will look into the report. If necessary, we will report accounts that are seen to be breaking the law to the relevant legal authorities. In addition to posts on the public forum, our community guidelines and rules also apply to content included in avatars, signatures and personal reputation comments, private messages and visitor messages. We will continue to update our community guidelines and rules from time to time to evolve alongside new behaviours and risks, and as part of our commitment to keeping TSR a safe space for our users. It is the responsibility of the user to be aware of current guidelines and rules. Our Commitment to Safeguarding At TSR we are committed to safeguarding and promoting the safety and welfare of children and young people. We believe that it is unacceptable for a child or young person to experience abuse of any kind and we recognise our responsibility to safeguard and promote the welfare of all children and young people on TSR. We endeavour to provide a safe and welcoming environment by ensuring that arrangements are in place for preventing, detecting and reporting all safeguarding matters accordingly. Treat other users with respect TSR strives to be a welcoming, diverse and inclusive community for our users. We do not tolerate users of the community or any individuals being shamed, bullied, harassed or discriminated against. TSR will not allow content that attacks, denigrates, intimidates, dehumanises, incites or threatens hatred, violence, prejudicial or discriminatory action against individuals or groups because of their actual or perceived race, ethnicity, gender identity, sexual orientation, national origin, caste, gender, religious affiliation, or disability status. Do not use racial, religious, or other slurs that incite or promote hatred, or any other content intended to create division amongst the community. Abusive content or behaviour intended to cause psychological distress will be removed from the site and if necessary, users will be banned from the site and may be reported to the relevant authorities.
Make sure the content you add is appropriate for all users
Breach of Privacy To ensure the safety of all users, don’t post any personal email addresses, social media handles or phone numbers on the public forums or via private messaging. Misinformation Misinformation is defined as content that is inaccurate or false. Whilst we encourage our users to engage in friendly and respectful conversations on the site, we do not permit misinformation that causes harm to individuals, our community, or the larger public regardless of intent. Do not state opinions as facts and please ensure reputable sources are used on TSR or content will be removed.
No cheating! TSR is not here to help anyone gain an unfair advantage over others in interviews, academic work or similar. Some exams are taken in different locations worldwide at different times. For many of these, there are restrictions on when discussion of these can take place in The Student Room. Keep an eye on the site for announcements about these restrictions, which you should read before posting about an exam.
Keep all your posts relevant and constructive.
No spammers, please. That means no advertising or other promotional activity.
Your Petition must be from the Change or Gov websites only. It must have at least 100 signatures before posting and it must be in a new thread, in the relevant forum (such as Educational Debate or Society) and with a detailed opening post explaining how it is relevant to our Community.
Do not use TSR to assist with, condone or advocate illegal activity. TSR does not condone illegal activity of any sort. We’re a UK-based site, so the laws of England and Wales are our guideline for determining illegality, although laws from other countries will be considered if appropriate to the context of the relevant post. Accounts found breaking the law will be reported to the relevant legal authorities. Illegal topics would include and are not limited to:
Do not misuse secondary/duplicate accounts.
Specific forum guidelines and rules Be aware of and follow any specific rules for each forum in which you post. Breaking specific forum rules could result in warnings. These will be flagged up by an announcement, 'sticky' thread, "useful resources" widget entry or similar Anonymous posting TSR has a function where you are able to post anonymously in specific forums. Do not misuse this function and please use the anonymous posting function if you feel that your posts contain sensitive or potentially embarrassing information. Please don't use the anonymous function to make offensive, unconstructive, inflammatory or otherwise rule-breaking posts. Repeat misuse of the anonymous function will result in warnings and/or a ban from the site. Deleting your own threads and your account We don't generally delete whole threads, it can be disheartening for users who have taken the time to respond to threads to see their responses removed. If you would like a thread deleted, please come to Ask the Community Staff and we will look into your request. If we’re unable to remove the whole thread we can remove you as the thread owner so that you are no longer associated with it. If you would like to delete posts, make sure you do this first before deleting your account. You are able to delete your own posts by clicking edit>delete on your posts. If you want to delete your account, you are able to anonymise your account yourself. Any posts you have not deleted will remain on the site as will quoted content, but your username showing next to these posts will change and your account details will be removed. To do this, hover over your username in the top bar. Then select 'Customise my TSR' > 'Edit my login settings' where you will see the option to do this. Once you do this you will not be able to get your account back, so please decide carefully! If you want to fully delete your account and all your data please let us know and we can put you in touch with our Data Protection Officer. Suicide and self harm TSR wants to ensure that the health and well-being of the users that make up our community are a priority and users should not feel afraid to speak openly about topics of mental health. We work in partnership with relevant charities to ensure we are providing the best support to the community. If you are having thoughts of suicide or self-harming, know that there is help and you're not alone. Many people turn to suicidal ideation and self-harm as a way to cope. Talking to relevant services can help you identify healthy, effective coping strategies and develop skills to manage difficult feelings. Posts containing self-harm or suicidal content will be flagged and removed from the public site. This is to both protect the original poster (OP) from unpleasant trolling or unsupportive content but to also support those who may find the content triggering. The OP will receive a PM explaining what has happened to their post and signposting them to relevant services. The post may be moved back either with a little bit of editing or in its entirety. If your post cannot be made safe for the forum then it will be removed from the public forums. If you come across any content that you feel is harmful please report it under 'mentions self-harm/suicide' the way you would normally. Don’t worry, this isn’t going to result in any sort of punishment for the OP. We do not allow content depicting, promoting or glorifying activities that could lead to suicide, self-harm, or eating disorders. We also do not permit users to share content depicting them partaking in, or encouraging others to partake in, dangerous activities that may lead to serious injury or death. Child Protection At TSR we are committed to ensuring the safety of children that are on our site. Users must meet the minimum age requirement of thirteen to use TSR. If underage users are identified, we will ban those accounts immediately. TSR considers anyone under the age of eighteen to be a child. Suspected grooming, sexual abuse and threats to the safety of a child on our site will be fully investigated and if necessary reported to the relevant legal authorities. Grooming behaviours are those in which an adult builds an emotional relationship with a minor in order to gain the minor's trust for the purposes of future or ongoing sexual contact, sexual abuse, trafficking, radicalisation and criminal exploitation. TSR will take action and report any content or accounts to the relevant legal authorities involving sexual interactions and advances between an adult and a child or children of a significant age difference. Moderation In order to safeguard the community we have a combined moderation system which involves the use of technology and human moderation. We spend a lot of time trying to make TSR’s community guidelines and rules fair and we’re always happy to discuss the way moderation works in relation to you. If you have any questions about any moderation action taken towards you, please post in the Ask the Community Staff forum, where we aim to reply to questions within 48 hours wherever possible. Please do not discuss any specific moderation actions taken by the community staff to any extent on the public forums or through visitor messages, private messages or similar. We can only discuss warnings with the user receiving them, so please do not ask about other users’ community records. If there are any unconstructive discussions from users regarding the capacity of staff, staff in general, or their actions on the forums, this could result in warnings or a ban. Sometimes community staff may edit, delete or move any material that is posted on the site. For example we might edit or remove posts, or close individual threads. Threads may be closed if there is persistent rule breaking or if the thread is going off topic. If a whole thread or post is removed, please don't start a new one repeating or rehashing content that has been removed as this will result in a warning or ban. You may receive something called a posting tip. These are designed to help our users who may be unaware of these guidelines and rules. These will help you make the most of TSR as well as introducing you to our specific guidelines and rules that you might not have been aware of yet. If you are using The Student Room in an inappropriate or unacceptable manner, including through breaking any of the forum rules, we may suspend or terminate your membership, either by banning you from the site or by using the warning system. If you break any of the community guidelines and rules, a reminder or warning may be issued to you by a member of the Community Staff. Our carding explained: A blue reminder is used for minor issues and will let you know that one of your posts (or other contributions) has broken a TSR rule. When you get one of these, please familiarise yourself with the community guidelines and rules. It isn't intended as a punishment and isn't a warning card, though repeated reminders and breaking of the guidelines and rules will escalate to a warning card. Four blue reminders will automatically escalate to a yellow card. A yellow card is used when either the issue is more serious or you have been alerted over a minor issue and it happens again. If three of these yellow card warnings are collected then the card will escalate to a red warning card which will result in a 7 day temporary ban. We may escalate cards ourselves and enforce bans if there is significant rule breaking on site. After this the next escalation is a black card which leads to a permanent ban from the site. We reserve the right to suspend or ban an account at our sole discretion. A ban may be applied in response to severe rule-breaking, ignoring the requests of community staff, unauthorised commercial advertising or the misuse of duplicate accounts. If your account has been banned, please refrain from creating a new one. If you would like to discuss this please email [email protected] These rules, in addition to our current Terms & Conditions constitute the understanding between you and us as to your use of The Student Room, and supersede all prior agreements and understandings. |
TSR Moderation Policy |
Our Moderation PolicyHere at The Student Room, the UK's largest student website, we endeavour to make the community the best it can be. Whether you're here to use the site for fun, discussion, getting help or helping others, we want everyone to enjoy their time on the site and to be able to access quality information, help and advice from their peers. In order for the site to run smoothly, and to allow us to achieve our aims, the site deploys a moderation policy. This page will introduce you to the moderation policy we employ on the site with links to further information, should you wish to know more. How is the site moderated? In order to safeguard the community we have a combined moderation system which involves the use of technology and human moderation. Our moderation team aims to act upon all inappropriate content reported to us within 24 hours. It is their role to ensure the community guidelines are upheld and to help the community when required. Rule-breaking content is identified in two ways - our automated filter system, and our community. Our automated system works by identifying certain terms or phrases to be reviewed by our moderators (for example, ‘suicide’ or anything that looks like spam). We also use a self-activating swear filter. Additionally, our volunteers are equipped with low level moderation tools across certain sections of the site. It is their role to ensure the site rules (see below) are upheld and to help the community when required. We rely heavily on our members to report content that could be deemed inappropriate or which breaks our community guidelines by bringing it to the attention of the Community Team. But who moderates the volunteers and moderators? The Community Team are responsible for the site as a whole, and amongst other things this includes the management of the volunteer team. For more detailed information on role descriptions, click here. How you can help us User reporting: By using the report system, you make it easier for our moderators to remove inappropriate comments, ensuring a better forum experience for other users. You can find the report button in the top right of all threads, posts and private messages. Set a good example: Help keep TSR friendly by using the site appropriately, being friendly, polite and helping out other people. Show people how to behave by being a useful member and contributing positively to the community. Your agreement with us Each member that uses the site is required to accept our terms and conditions which includes our community guidelines. These have been created to ensure that we provide the best platform for students wishing to use the site. More detail regarding the guidelines can be found below. Overview of site guidelines
The above is a simple overview of the rules on The Student Room. To read the rules in more detail, please click here. |