ZapRooms Community Guidelines

Nine rules. The rest of this document is what they mean in practice.

1. Never involve children in anything sexual. Zero tolerance, no warning, reported to authorities.
2. Don't threaten people or celebrate violence.
3. Don't harass. Once someone has said stop, keep going and it's harassment.
4. Don't attack people for who they are.
5. Don't encourage self-harm. Talking about your own struggle is welcome.
6. Don't post sexual content in public, and never post intimate images of someone without consent.
7. Don't expose people's private information.
8. Don't pretend to be someone else, and don't manipulate the platform.
9. Don't use ZapRooms for illegal goods or activity.

And one that isn't a rule so much as the point: the person you're replying to is a person. Most of what moderators deal with is not a policy violation — it's someone who forgot that.

Three layers, and they stack in this order.

1. Layer 1 — these Guidelines.

   Set by Zaplog. They apply in every Room, always. A Room cannot opt out of them, and a Room's own rules cannot permit something these Guidelines forbid.

2. Layer 2 — Room rules.

   Written by each Room's owner and moderators. They can be much stricter than this document, and often should be — a support Room may ban jokes, a technical Room may ban memes, a local Room may require posts in one language. Read a Room's rules before you post in it. "It's allowed on Zaplog" is not a defence against a Room rule.

3. Layer 3 — your own controls.

   Blocking, muting, leaving, and what you choose to show on your profile. See section 10.

3.1 Nothing sexual involving children

This is the one rule with no nuance, no context exception, and no second chance.

Never:

• Sexual content involving anyone under 18, real, drawn, written or AI-generated.
• Sexualising a real child in any way, including "jokes", captions on ordinary photos, or coded language.
• Contacting a minor for sexual purposes, or attempting to.
• Sharing, requesting, or directing people toward material of this kind, including off-platform links.

What we do: immediate permanent removal of the account with no warning, preservation of evidence, and a report to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children and to law enforcement. We do not accept appeals on this.

If you encounter this on ZapRooms, report it and do not engage, quote, or share it further — including to warn others. Reporting is the fastest route.

3.2 No violence or threats

Don't:

• Threaten to hurt or kill anyone, including conditional or joking-but-not framings ("someone should…", "I know where you live").
• Call for violence against a person or a group, or celebrate a violent act or its victims.
• Post content produced by, or promoting, terrorist or violent extremist organisations.
• Organise or coordinate violence, or share instructions for weapons or devices intended to harm people.
• Post graphic real-world violence for shock value. Newsworthy footage may be allowed with a clear content warning; gore posted to disturb people is not.

Allowed: discussing violence, reporting on it, fiction, history, martial arts, hunting, and games. The line is advocacy and intent, not subject matter.

3.3 No harassment

Don't:

• Target someone with repeated unwanted contact, replies, mentions or DMs after they have asked you to stop, blocked you, or clearly disengaged.
• Follow someone between Rooms to keep at them.
• Organise or join a pile-on, brigade, or coordinated campaign against a person or a Room.
• Sexually harass anyone, including unsolicited sexual comments, images, or persistent advances.
• Mock someone's appearance, disability, grief, trauma or mental health.
• Encourage others to harass someone, including by posting their handle with an implied instruction.

On arguments: a heated disagreement is not harassment. Being wrong is not harassment. Someone criticising your post is not harassment. What turns it is persistence after a clear stop signal, or numbers against one person.

On public figures: criticism of public figures, including harsh criticism, is fine. Threats, doxxing and sexual harassment are not — those rules don't have a celebrity exception.

3.4 No hate

Don't attack, dehumanise, mock, or call for the exclusion of people based on: race, ethnicity, national origin, caste, immigration status, religion, sex, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, disability, or serious illness.

That includes slurs, hateful stereotypes, dehumanising comparisons, hate symbols and coded variants of any of the above, and denying or distorting documented atrocities against a protected group.

Allowed: discussing these topics, criticising ideas, institutions, religions, governments and political movements, quoting a slur to report or condemn its use, and reclaimed language used by the people it refers to.

Not a defence: "it's a joke", "I was being ironic", "the slur was censored", or that the target group is a majority where you live. This rule protects everyone equally.

3.5 Self-harm — read this one carefully

Don't encourage, instruct, glamorise or challenge anyone toward suicide, self-injury, or disordered eating. That includes methods, "thinspiration", pro-ana or pro-mia material, weight or calorie targets framed as goals for a struggling person, and telling someone to hurt themselves in an argument — which we treat as a severe violation, not as trash talk.

Do talk about your own experience. Recovery Rooms, support threads, grief, therapy, medication, relapse, and the plain sentence "I'm not doing well" are all welcome here and always have been. We remove content that pushes people toward harm, not content that describes surviving it.

3.6 Adult content and consent

Never, anywhere:

• Intimate or sexual images of a person shared without their consent, including images obtained by hacking, deception, or in a relationship that has ended. This includes threatening to share them.
• Sexual content involving anyone under 18 (see 3.1).
• Content depicting non-consensual sexual acts as desirable.
• Sexual services, escorting, or commercial sexual exploitation.

In public surfaces — never: Room names, Room descriptions, Room icons and banners, usernames, profile photos, cover photos, bios and flairs are visible to people who did not opt in. Keep them clean.

Elsewhere: Rooms may permit adult discussion where it is legal and the Room is age-gated appropriately. Room owners are responsible for setting an age gate that matches their content, and for their Room's compliance with the law where their members are. If a Room's content requires an age gate it doesn't have, we will apply one or remove the Room.

3.7 Privacy and doxxing

Don't post, or threaten to post, someone's private information without their consent: home or work address, phone number, personal email, government ID numbers, financial account details, medical information, precise real-time location, private messages or images, or their legal name where they have not shared it.

Aggregating public fragments into a profile of someone counts. So does "just asking" for it, and so does posting it as a "warning" about a person.

Allowed: information the person has clearly made public themselves, and information that is genuinely public record about a public figure acting in their public role.

Screenshots of Zaplog chats: be careful. Sharing a private conversation that identifies someone, in a way that exposes or targets them, is a violation even though you were a party to it.

3.8 Impersonation and deception

Don't:

• Pretend to be another person, a company, a public figure, or Zaplog staff.
• Run a Room that presents itself as the official Room of an organisation you don't represent.
• Use someone's name, photo or likeness to make it look like they said or did something.
• Post synthetic or manipulated media of a real person presented as authentic, where it could deceive and cause harm.
• Post misinformation likely to cause imminent physical harm — false medical instructions, fabricated emergency information, or content designed to interfere with someone's ability to get help.

Allowed: parody, satire and fan Rooms, clearly labelled as such — in the Room description and the profile, not just implied. Anonymity and pseudonyms are fine; you don't owe anyone your real name.

3.9 Spam and platform manipulation

Don't:

• Post the same or near-identical content repeatedly, across Rooms, or from multiple accounts.
• Mass-send Room DMs or invites to people who didn't ask.
• Manipulate votes, Boost points or awards — vote rings, buying or selling votes, asking for upvotes, or using alt accounts to inflate your own standing.
• Buy, sell, trade or rent accounts, Rooms, moderator positions, usernames, flairs or awards.
• Run bot networks or use automated means to create accounts or content.
• Scrape ZapRooms, or use unauthorised clients.
• Post unlabelled affiliate links, engagement bait, or link-farm content.
• Deliberately work around a Room's rate limits, slow mode, or automod rules.

Self-promotion is fine where the Room allows it. The test moderators generally apply: are you a member of this community who occasionally shares your work, or are you an advertiser who found an audience?

3.10 Illegal goods and activity

Don't use ZapRooms to buy, sell, trade, or coordinate: illegal drugs, prescription medication outside a lawful channel, firearms and their unlawful components, explosives, stolen goods or credentials, counterfeit items, forged documents, hacked accounts, or protected wildlife.

Don't use it for fraud, phishing, scams, money laundering, pyramid or Ponzi schemes, gambling where it is unlawful, or human trafficking or exploitation of any kind.

Don't post malware, or instructions for gaining unauthorised access to systems, accounts or data.

Allowed: harm reduction, drug policy discussion, security research discussed responsibly, and legal markets discussed legally.

3.11 Intellectual property

Post what's yours, or what you have permission to post. Don't upload other people's work as your own, and don't use ZapRooms to distribute pirated material or to organise access to it.

Copyright holders can send a notice to support@zaplog.ai with "DMCA Notice" in the subject line; the process is in section 19 of the Terms. Accounts that repeatedly infringe are removed.

3.12 Bots and automation

Room owners can run moderation bots. If you operate one:

• Its actions are your actions. You answer for everything it does.
• It must be identifiable as a bot in the Room it serves. Don't run a bot that passes as a person.
• It stays inside the Room it was configured for. No cross-Room automation, no scraping, no mass DMs, no vote activity.
• It respects rate limits and doesn't work around enforcement.
• Test it in dry-run mode before you arm it. A misconfigured rule can silently remove hundreds of good posts, and the audit history will show it was yours.

We can disable any bot at any time.

3.13 Ban evasion

If your account is banned from a Room or from Zaplog, stay gone. Don't come back with a new account, a friend's account, or a different number.

Evasion resets the clock: a temporary ban you evade becomes a permanent one, and we remove the evading accounts as we find them. If you think a ban was wrong, appeal it — that's what the process is for.

A Room is not just its posts. These apply to the Room as an object.

Room names, descriptions, icons and banners are public-facing. They must not be sexually explicit, hateful, harassing, deceptive, or impersonate an organisation you don't represent. Don't squat a name you have no intention of using.

A Room's stated purpose has to match what it does. A Room that describes itself as one thing and operates as a harassment hub, a marketplace for banned goods, or an evasion channel for a removed community will be removed regardless of its description.

Age gates. A Room has two settings, and the choice is the owner's:

• 13 — the default, and Zaplog's own minimum age. Anyone who can use Zaplog can join.
• 18 — adults only. People under 18 cannot join.

The gate is checked against the date of birth on the member's profile. Set 18 if your Room's content calls for it — this is not decoration, and "we didn't set one" is not a defence for adult content in a Room left at 13. Creating any Room requires you to be 18 or older, whichever gate you set.

Room rules. Write them. Rooms with clear, visible rules get better outcomes and fewer appeals, and moderators who enforce written rules get far less grief than moderators who enforce unwritten ones. Your rules must not contradict these Guidelines.

Dormant and abandoned Rooms. If a Room's owner and moderators go inactive and the Room is left unmoderated, we may transfer it to an active moderator, restrict it, or archive it — particularly if it is accumulating violating content.

Reconstituted Rooms. Recreating a Room we removed, under a new name, to continue the same violating activity, is Room-level ban evasion and gets the same treatment.

5.1 Two levels of enforcement

Room-level. A Room's moderators can act inside their own Room only: remove your post or comment, mute you for a period, or ban you from that Room. This has no effect on your Zaplog account or on any other Room.

Platform-level. Zaplog's Trust & Safety team can act across all of Zaplog: remove content, restrict features, suspend, or permanently terminate an account.

5.2 The ladder

For most violations we escalate. In order:

1. Content removal — the post, comment or message comes down. You are told which rule it broke.
2. Warning — a formal, recorded notice. Most people never see a second one.
3. Timed mute — you can read but not post in a Room, for a period set by its moderators. Mutes expire on their own.
4. Room ban — you're out of that Room. May be temporary or permanent.
5. Feature restriction — platform-wide limits on posting, commenting, voting, DMs, invites or Room creation.
6. Account suspension — temporary loss of access.
7. Permanent termination — the account is removed.

Where you enter the ladder depends on severity, not on how many previous strikes you have. Repeat violations move you up it faster.

5.3 Violations that skip straight to termination

No warning, no ladder:

• Anything sexual involving children.
• Credible threats of violence against a specific person.
• Distributing non-consensual intimate imagery, or sextortion.
• Coordinated child endangerment, trafficking, or exploitation.
• Terrorist or violent extremist content.
• Doxxing intended to cause physical harm.

5.4 Typical first-offence outcomes

This table is what usually happens the first time, absent aggravating factors. It is a guide to our thinking, not a contract — we weigh intent, harm caused, and whether you're a first-time poster or a repeat offender.

5.5 What we tell you

When we act at the platform level, you'll see a notice saying what was actioned, which rule it broke, what the consequence is, how long it lasts, and how to appeal. If you get an enforcement notice without that information, tell us — that's a bug on our side.

5.6 What happens to your content

Removed content stops being visible. Removal records, reports, moderator notes and enforcement history are retained even after an account is deleted — we need them to run appeals and to stop ban evasion. See section 11 of the Privacy Policy.

6.1 How

Every post, comment, Room message, Room and profile has a report option. Tell us which rule you think was broken and add anything we'd need to see it — especially if the violation depends on context we can't see from the content alone, like a pattern of contact across Rooms.

For anything urgent or severe, or if the in-app report doesn't fit, write to support@zaplog.ai.

6.2 What happens next

Reports go to the Room's moderators, to Zaplog's Trust & Safety team, or both, depending on what was reported. Each report is reviewed and closed as actioned or dismissed. Severe reports — child safety, credible threats, non-consensual imagery — are prioritised ahead of everything else.

You won't usually be told the outcome for someone else's account. That's a privacy limit, not indifference.

6.3 Don't abuse the report button

Mass-reporting someone you're in an argument with, filing reports you know to be false, or organising a reporting campaign is itself a violation, and it slows down the reports from people who actually need help. Persistent false reporting costs you the ability to report.

6.4 If you're in danger

Zaplog is not an emergency service. If someone is in immediate physical danger, contact your local emergency number first. Then report it to us so we can preserve evidence and act on the account.

If we removed something of yours or restricted your account and you think we got it wrong, appeal it. Appeals get looked at by a person.

• Room-level actions — appeal to that Room's moderators through modmail. They made the decision; they can undo it.
• Platform-level actions — appeal to Zaplog through modmail or by writing to support@zaplog.ai with "Appeal" in the subject line.

An appeal is accepted or rejected, and you're told which. Tell us what you think we misread — context we couldn't see, a misidentification, an account you no longer control. "I disagree" without anything new rarely changes an outcome; "the account you actioned was compromised on the 3rd" often does.

We don't reinstate content that is illegal or that presents a serious safety risk, whatever the appeal says.

One appeal per action. Filing the same appeal repeatedly won't get a different answer, and abusing the appeals queue is treated like abusing the report button.

Moderating is real work, done for free, mostly noticed when it goes wrong. Thank you for doing it. Here's what it commits you to.

8.1 What you agree to

• You are not Zaplog staff. You volunteer for your Room. You aren't our employee, agent or contractor, and we don't pay you.
• Enforce these Guidelines in your Room, and your own rules consistently.
• Write your rules down and keep them visible. Unwritten rules generate appeals.
• Give a reason when you remove something. Use the removal-reason field. It takes five seconds and prevents most of the arguments that follow.
• Answer modmail. Appeals of your decisions come to you first.
• Escalate what's above your level. Child safety, credible threats, doxxing intended to cause harm, and non-consensual imagery go to Zaplog immediately — remove the content, then report it. Don't investigate it yourself.

8.2 Your tools, and how to use them well

8.3 What you must not do

• Use moderation powers for harassment, revenge, or to settle a personal score.
• Sell anything — moderator positions, pinned posts, flairs, removals, or promotion — or accept payment to remove or boost content without disclosing it.
• Misuse what you can see through moderation tools. Member data, notes and reports stay in the Room. Don't publish them, don't share them outside your mod team, and don't use them to identify or target someone.
• Ban someone for reporting your Room, or for appealing.
• Run automod or bots to evade Zaplog enforcement, hide violating content, or filter out reports.
• Let a Room you moderate become a base for brigading another Room or targeting a person. A Room that organises harassment is removed, and its moderators go with it.
• Impersonate Zaplog staff, or claim your decision came from us when it didn't.

8.4 Disagreeing with us

If Zaplog removes content in your Room and you think we were wrong, tell us through modmail. We'd rather hear it. What you cannot do is reinstate content we removed under these Guidelines, or work around the removal.

8.5 Losing the role

We can remove moderator status at any time — for violations, for using the role in bad faith, or where a Room has been abandoned and members need someone active. Room owners can also add and remove their own moderators.

Everything in section 8 applies to you, plus:

• You must be 18 or older to create a Room. This check does not have exceptions.
• You are responsible for your Room — its rules, its moderators, its bots, its age gate, and the culture it produces. Picking good moderators is the highest-leverage decision you'll make.
• Set an age gate that matches your content, and revisit it if the Room changes.
• Don't run a Room you can't moderate. If you can't keep up, recruit, or hand it over.
• Transfers. You can transfer ownership. If you delete your Zaplog account, Rooms you created transfer to another moderator rather than disappearing — the community outlives your account.
• A removed Room stays removed. Rebuilding it elsewhere to continue the same activity is evasion.

Before reporting — and sometimes instead of it — these are yours:

• Block someone. They can't contact you, and you stop seeing them.
• Mute a Room, or turn off its notifications, without leaving.
• Leave a Room. Not every community is for you, and that's fine.
• Control your profile. Who can see your photo, your last seen and your status, and whether you're findable by username. Accounts under 18 are not username-searchable by default.
• Hide and collapse. Use your Room's tools to filter what you'd rather not read.

Reporting is for rule violations. Blocking is for people you'd rather not deal with. They're different tools and you don't need our permission to use the second one.

We remove content when a valid legal order requires it, and we may restrict content in a specific country where local law requires it while leaving it visible elsewhere. Where we can lawfully tell you that this happened, we will.

We disclose account information to law enforcement only where legally required, or where there is a genuine emergency involving a risk of death or serious physical injury. What we hold and how we handle these requests is set out in the Privacy Policy.

We report child sexual abuse material to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children and to law enforcement, without a court order and without notifying the account.

We'll update these as ZapRooms grows and as we learn where the rules don't hold up.

For material changes — a new rule, a rule that becomes stricter, or a change to the enforcement ladder — we'll give notice in the app at least 30 days before it takes effect, unless a safety or legal issue requires it sooner.

Enforcement is not retroactive: we don't action old content under a rule that didn't exist when it was posted.

Previous versions are available from support@zaplog.ai.