Room Rules

Different rooms carry different burdens. A discussion under a published essay is not the same thing as an Open Thread or a lead submitted for editorial scrutiny. These rules keep the standards clear.

Universal Safety Rules

These rules apply in every community room, regardless of subject, tone, or viewpoint.

  • No credible threats or encouragement of violence.
  • No targeted harassment, stalking, intimidation, or coordinated abuse.
  • No doxxing or publication of private information without a lawful and compelling reason.
  • No impersonation, fraud, or deliberate deception about identity or authority.
  • No spam, flooding, deliberate disruption, or evasion of a restriction.
  • No sexual exploitation or sexualised coercion.
  • No content that exploits, endangers, or sexualises children. Safeguarding concerns may require immediate action and referral to the appropriate authorities.
  • No unlawful content.
  • No manipulation, fabrication, or deliberate misrepresentation of evidence.

Standard Discussion Rooms

  • Address the argument, not the person.
  • If you challenge a person directly, begin with a Steel Man summary.
  • Support strong claims with reasoning or evidence where relevant.
  • No slurs, no personalised nastiness, and no baiting for a reaction.
  • Add something to the room. Do not post just to echo noise.

Open Threads

  • Bring a real prompt, not just a headline dump.
  • Explain why the issue matters or what pattern you think is visible.
  • Distinguish what is reported, what is inferred, and what remains uncertain.
  • Do not spam reactive commentary without adding context.
  • Expect other members to test your framing, not flatter it.

Investigate with Zoë

  • Bring leads, anomalies, documents, patterns, or observations that genuinely do not add up.
  • State what the lead is, why it matters, and what evidence you have.
  • Separate suspicion, anomaly, inference, and proof. They are not interchangeable.
  • Describe the source, provenance, and limits of evidence as accurately as you can.
  • The room helps test a lead, but Zoë decides whether it is parked, watched, or picked up.
  • Do not use the room for unstructured conspiracy dumping or rumour recycling.

What Moderators May Do

  • Offer guidance, request clarification, or redirect content to the correct room.
  • Warn, restrict, suspend, or remove accounts where conduct or risk justifies it.
  • Remove deliberate disruption, abuse, fabricated evidence, or dangerous content.
  • Park leads that lack enough evidence for the investigative room.
  • Challenge members to clarify unsupported claims.
  • Preserve relevant evidence before harmful material is removed.

Poor writing, unusual communication, humour, an unpopular opinion, or an argument that a moderator considers weak is not enough by itself to justify a sanction. The question is whether the conduct breaches a rule, creates a material risk, or deliberately prevents the room from functioning.