Conduct rules

Who can take part

Beta participants must be 18 or older and in the United States. You say so when you join; Accordly does not check or guess.

What is not a violation

Holding a view someone else finds wrong or offensive is not a violation. Neither is arguing for it firmly, changing your mind, or declining to change it. A report made in good faith is not held against you because it could not be confirmed.

What is prohibited

• Credible threats of violence against anyone.
• Targeted harassment of a person.
• Hateful attacks on someone for a protected characteristic, such as race, ethnicity, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, disability, or national origin.
• Sexual exploitation, or sexual content shared without consent.
• Sharing someone's private personal information.
• Impersonating another person.
• Spam.
• Reporting someone to abuse the report process rather than to raise a real concern.

How a report is handled

A report can be about a person, an Exchange, or a single response. The reporter chooses what content goes with it and sees it first. Nathan Staab, the founder, reviews every report himself, through a private administration tool that needs a second sign-in factor. Reports are not watched continuously, and Accordly is not an emergency service; the support page says where to turn instead.

The reporter sees the report move from Received to Under review to Review complete. Completion says whether action was taken, not what the action was.

What can happen

Severity, context, and history decide the outcome. There is no fixed number of strikes, and serious conduct can lead straight to a ban.

• No action.
• Guidance or a warning.
• A Restricted response: the response is replaced by a neutral placeholder for both participants, and the original is kept as evidence.
• A suspension of 24 hours, 7 days, or 30 days.
• A permanent ban.

Where there is credible, imminent danger, an account may be suspended at once. Accordly contacts emergency services only when what it knows points to credible, imminent danger and is enough to act on, or when the law requires it.

A suspended or banned account can still read its existing Exchanges, see the action taken, appeal, export its data, and ask to be deleted. It cannot post, invite, start an Exchange, or contact Peers.

Notices and appeals

If an action is taken on your account, you are told which rule, what the action is, how long it lasts, and how to appeal. You are never told who reported you. A notice may be held back for a time when telling you at once would put someone at risk. Emails about a report or an action carry no content; you sign in to read the details.

You may appeal an action once, within 30 days. The action stays in place while the appeal is reviewed. During the beta the founder is the only reviewer, so there is no independent second reviewer: he reconsiders the decision after at least 24 hours and records a new rationale. An action overturned on appeal is reversed promptly, and the reversal is recorded.

When these rules change

You are told about every change. You are asked to accept the rules again only when what is prohibited, or what can be done about it, grows.