OPERATOR are
facts only the operator can supply: where moderators can reach the
operator, and what the operator expects of a community that joins
a federated network. Fill them in, and have a qualified lawyer read
the result, before presenting this document as binding.
The contact points in these documents are the project's own. If you run your own
instance, replace them with yours before you publish them.
Version: 1.0 ·
Template last revised: 2026-09-20 ·
Effective on this instance:
OPERATOR: the date this document takes effect on this instance
1. Publish your rules before you need them
State your community's rules where members can see them, not in a pinned message from three months ago. Say what the rules are, what happens when they are broken, and who decides. A rule that is not written down is very hard to apply consistently and almost impossible to defend afterwards.
Your rules may be stricter than the instance's acceptable use rules. They may not be weaker, they may not contradict the instance's terms, and they may not make private material public.
2. Apply them the same way to everybody
Consistency is what makes a rule fair. If two people break the same rule and get different answers, the rule is not the rule; it is a favour. Where somebody is somebody, a moderator can step back, but the reasons should be written down and they should be the reasons given in the record.
3. Keep the people in your community safe
A community is a place where people, including minors, talk to people they have not met. That makes the community's moderators part of how that is handled.
Child sexual abuse material is prohibited on every instance, with no exception, and it covers every route into the community: messages, direct messages, files and attachments, profile pictures, avatars, banners, community icons, link previews, uploads, the output of a bot, the result of an integration, and material that arrived by federation. Asking for such material, offering it, or arranging to obtain it is prohibited as well. The acceptable use rules set that out in full, and it applies to you in exactly the way it applies to everybody else.
When such material is reported to you, or you find it yourself: remove it, remove the account and any bot or integration that shared it, stop the material from circulating further, and report it to the operator at OPERATOR: where a moderator can reach the operator of this instance, and where child safety reports are sent. Where the law requires the material to be reported to an authority, report it. Do not keep a copy to show somebody else, and do not pass it on.
Other content that harms children is treated the same way: grooming, sextortion, and an adult contacting a child in a sexual way are all reportable and all actionable.
4. Deal with reports
A report filed in your community reaches you. Someone who files one has usually already seen something that disturbed them, and they will not file a second one.
- Acknowledge the report, and tell the person it was received.
- Look at what is actually there, not at who is complaining.
- Act, or say why you are not going to act, and say it to the person who reported.
- Keep the person who reported informed of the outcome, within what the rules of the community allow.
A report about a moderator, or about a decision you made, does not belong to you. Pass it to the instance operator.
5. Record your decisions
Use the moderation actions the software provides — bans, timeouts, role changes — and write the reason into the record that the action creates. A decision without a recorded reason cannot be reviewed by the operator, cannot be explained to the person it was taken against, and cannot be defended months later when somebody asks why.
Keep your own notes where they are protected, and keep them for as long as the instance's Privacy Policy says records are kept.
6. Give people a way to appeal
Anyone you action can ask the instance for the decision to be looked at again, and the request does not go through you. This is deliberate: a community that removed somebody cannot be the only people who hear their appeal. Tell people this route exists, in the notice you send when you take action.
7. Do not override the instance
The operator may act in any community on the instance, and may remove a community that repeatedly breaks the instance's policy. They can act in your community for the same reasons you can act in it. Where you disagree with the operator, the Support page says who to ask.
8. Federation
If your community federates with another instance, the rules in this document apply to the content that arrives as well as to the content that does not. A remote instance is operated by somebody else; you cannot see what it does, and it cannot be made to follow your rules. The Federation Policy explains what an operator takes on, and what the operator expects of a community that participates: OPERATOR: what this instance expects of a community that federates, and how a moderator reports a remote instance that breaks the rules
9. Leaving a community
If you hand a community over, hand over the rules with it, and tell the operator, so there is somebody to talk to. If a community closes, the operator can usually export its history on request; ask before assuming it has been kept.