The Student Room community guidelines

Welcome to The Student Room. By using this site, you agree to follow our community guidelines and rules. These are listed below.

The guidelines and rules are here to help make The Student Room a welcoming space for everyone. They have been defined to help ensure safety, diversity, inclusion and authenticity for our busy community.

The Student Room 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.

The Student Room 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, socioeconomic status, 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.

• Be friendly to other users and be mindful of the tone you use on site. There's no need to be hostile and aggressive just because you disagree with someone.
• Don’t insult people, don’t patronise or belittle them and don’t make personal attacks.
• We don’t allow bullying or harassment. This includes abusive language, revealing others’ personal or sensitive information or inciting or engaging others to do any of the same.
• We may remove expressions of abuse, including threats or degrading statements intended to mock, humiliate, embarrass, intimidate, or hurt an individual. The Student Room cannot condone content that insults or disparages an individual on the basis of attributes.
• Do not express discriminatory or otherwise offensive views. There is no place for racism, religious hatred, disablism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia and hate for any marginalised groups here.
• When linking to other webpages, be mindful and do not incite discrimination or hateful behaviour which could lead to attacks on marginalised groups and divisions within the community.
• We have a 'swear filter' on the site that censors a list of words considered to be inappropriate. If you try really hard you can get around it: please don’t. You can self-censor if you wish, in which case the entire word must be starred out, otherwise, just type out all words in full and the filter will replace any censored words with asterisks. Please - no images or other media that include unfiltered swearing, and no links to any content that includes significant unfiltered swearing. Please do not use the swear filter to be abusive to others.
• Details of any off-site groups, which includes and does not limit to such as Facebook, Whatsapp, Discord should not be shared on The Student Room. The Student Room cannot be held accountable for what goes on outside of the site so for the safety of yourself and others please do not share these groups on The Student Room.
• The Student Room will not condone accounts that are used to incite wilful harm or intimidation, such as cyberstalking or trolling. These accounts will be banned and if necessary, reported to the relevant legal authorities. If you suspect someone of being a troll, please do not reply to them in any way or accuse them on the site, just report them and we will look into this. Outcomes of your report will not be able to be discussed in detail with you.
• The debate and current affairs forum is for discussing valid breaking news. Please don't use this forum to create discussions or posts with the intention of provoking reactions of hatred. Keep debates constructive and healthy. Do not engage in arguments or make inflammatory posts on any of our forums and keep posting friendly.

• Do not link to material on site that could incite discrimination or hateful behaviour towards marginalised groups.
• Please also avoid posting in languages other than English unless you also provide a translation (aside from in the Foreign Languages forums or the International Lounge).
• The Student Room does not allow content that is gratuitously shocking, graphic, sadistic, or gruesome or that promotes, normalises, or glorifies extreme violence or suffering on our site. When there is a threat to public safety, we will suspend or ban the account and, if necessary, we will report it to relevant legal authorities.
• Do not post anything that advocates illegal activity.
• Do not post about or link to any sexually explicit content on The Student Room, this includes sexually explicit images or text. It’s fine to discuss sexual health on The Student Room - but please remember this isn't the place for sex chat or tips and this content will be removed. If necessary content that breaks the law will be reported to the relevant authorities. 
• Remember that The Student Room is a place for students to connect, not a dating site.
• You should not write anything which could prejudice pending or on-going court proceedings of which you are aware. For example, if you have any personal knowledge about someone who has been arrested or charged or being prosecuted for an offence, you must not mention it. If you do, you could be in contempt of court, which is an extremely serious matter.

The Student Room 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.

• Do not post any content that could constitute cheating.
• Do not request or share access to any locked exam papers.
• Do not share leaked papers.

• You can help keep the conversation flowing by posting in the correct forum, keeping to the topic of the thread and adding constructive posts. Threads will be moved to the relevant forum if necessary.
• Sometimes people want to 'bump' a thread (ie, post in it again so it returns to the top of the chronological thread list). That’s fine once, if your thread hasn’t had a response after a significant amount of time. But please don’t bump a thread multiple times or without allowing appropriate time for others to read the thread and reply. How much time you should wait for a reply depends on the forum - in busier forums, it becomes appropriate to bump a thread sooner than in quieter ones. As a rough guide, please give it 24 hours and don’t bump a thread while it’s still near the top of the most recently updated threads in its forum.
• Do not post the same content multiple times, within either a single or multiple threads. These will be removed.
• Please check before posting that the thread is still current. If you’re adding to a thread that’s been dormant for more than six months, you’re probably better off starting a new thread instead. We will close threads that are over six months old.
• We understand that AI can be a useful tool, however, we want to nurture the human conversation that we have on The Student Room. If you have used AI to help to inform your post please use the hashtag #AIassisted to notify other users. It is also OK to use a translator to help you to post in English rather than another language; you do not need to use the hashtag in these instances.

• If you post a link, please make sure it’s useful. This isn’t the place for promotional activity, so please don't post about commercial and non-commercial products/services, job adverts, Facebook groups, societies and forums other than The Student Room (unless you’re linking to a specific, relevant thread from another forum). One exception is in the Find a Flatmate and Student Accommodation forum, where private accommodation classifieds can be posted by fellow students (subject to the forum's guidelines and rules outlined).
• Apart from the student deals forum, do not post referral links, codes or similar which offer a benefit to you when another person uses the link/code to make use of a service in any other forum.
• Don’t campaign for votes or similar.
• We will remove content or ban accounts that involve spam or fake engagement, impersonation, misleading information that causes harm.
• Student surveys and research are actively encouraged, please refrain from posting surveys multiple times and ensure you post them in the correct forum.
• Please do not advertise on The Student Room, any accounts found advertising without permission will be banned. If you would like to advertise, please get in contact here.
• Petitions are permitted on the site but you need to ensure they meet the following criteria:
  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.

The Student Room 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:

• Terrorism offences
• Child Sexual Exploitation and Abuse (including Grooming and Child Sexual Abuse)
• Encouraging or assisting suicide (or attempted suicide) or self-harm
• Hate offences
• Harassment
• Stalking, threats and abuse
• Controlling or coercive behaviour
• Drugs and psychoactive substances offences
• Firearms and other weapons offences
• Unlawful immigration and human trafficking
• Sexual exploitation of adults
• Extreme pornography offences
• Intimate Image Abuse
• Proceeds of crime offence
• Fraud and financial services offences
• Foreign Interference offences
• Animal cruelty

• You are welcome to create and operate multiple accounts on The Student Room, as long as you continue to follow the guidelines and rules. You can not accrue cards on a secondary account nor use it to post in the same threads as your main account.
• If you have an account banned please don't create further accounts; these will be banned. If you would like to discuss your ban please email [email protected]
• Do not use another account to impersonate other users.
• Do not use another account to abuse the reputation system, eg, by attempting to get around the usual restrictions on the frequency of leaving reputation/post ratings.

At The Student Room we are committed to safeguarding and promoting the safety and welfare of children and young people.

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 The Student Room.

We work hard to provide a safe and welcoming environment by ensuring that arrangements are in place for preventing, detecting and reporting all safeguarding matters accordingly.

• We have a moderation policy, with specific processes for sensitive or controversial topics

• Where possible, we partner with health professionals to share valuable and authoritative advice with our community about their health and wellbeing

• We have a safeguarding policy which is activated in the event that a serious risk to a member of the community is identified. 

Users must meet the minimum age requirement of 13 to use The Student Room. If underage users are identified, we will ban those accounts immediately. The Student Room considers anyone under the age of 18 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.

The Student Room 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.

The Student Room 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. 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.

Rules in specific forums

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.

Breach of privacy

To ensure the safety of all users, don’t post any personal email addresses, offsite groups, social media handles or phone numbers on the public forums or via private messaging.

Anonymous posting

The Student Room 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.

We proactively enforce the above guidelines and rules. We also encourage users to use The Student Room's tools to report any content that may break our community guidelines and rules.

We may remove or edit any content that breaks our community guidelines and rules and apply a card to relevant user accounts. If this affects you, we will notify you.

If you believe you have not broken our community guidelines and rules, you can appeal the decision in our Ask the Community Staff forum, Please be respectful when using this forum to speak to community staff. Abusive language or rudeness will not be tolerated. We have an article that explains more about our moderation policy and what you should know about appealing decisions.

The Student Room has a private messaging feature. Please ensure you do not break our community guidelines and rules while using this feature. If you receive private messages that break our community guidelines and rules, please report these and our team will investigate.

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 The Student Room a safe space for our users. It is the responsibility of the user to be aware of current guidelines and rules.