Rules, moderation and appeals

These are the rules for united-humanity.us, the server run by this project. They sit on top of the Humanity Accord, which takes precedence: a server rule may be stricter than the Accord, never looser, and never coercive.

Published 6 September 2026; rule 7 and the section on work put here without permission added 12 October 2026; the copyright form and the public takedown log added 13 October 2026. Anyone running their own HumanityOS server writes their own rules; these bind this server only.

The rules

1. Respect every person. No harassment, hate speech, doxxing or targeted attacks. Disagreement is fine. Contempt is not.

2. Act in good faith. Communicate honestly. No deception or manipulation. If you got something wrong, say so. Everyone here is still learning.

3. Protect privacy. Do not share someone else's personal information without their consent. Your identity here is yours; treat everyone else's the same way.

4. Keep it legal. No illegal content, threats or fraud.

5. Stay roughly on topic. Channels exist for a reason. Use the general channel for anything broad.

6. Build rather than burn. Constructive criticism is welcome and wanted. Wrecking things for its own sake is not.

7. Your uploads stay yours. When you put a file on this server, you keep every right you have in it. You give the people who run this server, and anyone who runs it after them, a free, non-exclusive permission to store your file, keep backup copies, make previews and smaller copies of it, and show it and offer it for download to the people you chose (everyone, or this server's members), on this server only, for as long as you leave it here. When you remove the file or your account, the permission ends, apart from backup copies, which age out on the server's own schedule. This permission lets no one else use your file: what others may do with it is set by the licence you chose. Only upload what you have the right to share.

The limits that are not negotiable

A few things are prohibited regardless of intent, belief, culture, consent or claimed authorization. They are not weighed against context and they do not get a proportional first response. Sexual exploitation of children is the clearest of them: it means immediate permanent removal and reporting to the authorities, with no warning step and no appeal on this server.

The full list, and why it is written as absolute, is in Absolute Prohibitions.

Who moderates, and what they can actually do

The Accord requires every space to declare who can moderate it and what powers they hold. On this server that is the operator (admin) and anyone the operator has made a moderator. This table is the real list, taken from the code that enforces it, not a summary of intentions.

Action	Who	What it does	Reversible
Kick	Moderator	Closes your connection. Nothing is stored and you can reconnect immediately. It is a way to interrupt, not to exclude.	Yes, instantly
Mute	Moderator	You stay connected and can read, but cannot post in channels or send private messages.	Yes
Ban	Admin only	Refuses your key at connection. It is checked before anything else and survives restarts.	Yes, by an admin
Delete a message	Moderator (anyone may delete their own)	Removes it for everyone.	No
Wipe a channel	Admin only	Deletes that channel's history.	No
Change someone's role	Admin only	Grants or removes moderator and similar roles.	Yes

Ordinary response is proportional, in this order: a word about it, then mute, then kick, then ban. Immediate removal is for severe harm or for repeated violations after the earlier steps, and for the absolute limits above, which skip the ladder entirely.

What a ban is, exactly

A ban is attached to your identity key, not to your name, your address or your device. It has no expiry: nothing removes it automatically, so it stays until an admin lifts it. Because it is key-based, generating a new identity gets around it, which is a deliberate consequence of not tracking people by address. We would rather a determined person be able to come back than build the surveillance it would take to stop them.

Reporting something

Use /report <name> <what happened> in chat. Include the reason: it is the difference between a report that can be acted on and one that cannot. Reports go to moderators who are connected at that moment.

You do not have to involve a moderator at all if you would rather not. You can block or mute anyone yourself, close a conversation, or leave a space, and nobody is told that you did. The Accord treats that as your right rather than a lesser option.

If your work was put here without your permission

If something on this server is yours (a picture, a video, a model, a piece of writing) and it was put here without your permission, tell us. An admin will look at it and can take it down.

Anyone, signed in or not: open the item on the Files page and press Report a copyright problem (the same button is at the foot of the Files page, where you give the item's number or its address, which looks like united-humanity.us/files/12). Say why the work is yours and tick the box. Your name and how to reach you are optional, and only this server's admins see them. The admins are told inside HumanityOS.
If you are a member here, you can also open the item and choose Report, with the reason "My work, shared without my permission", saying in the note which file it is and why it is yours.

Every decision is published in the takedown log below: which item, when it was reported and decided, whether it was removed or kept, and the admin's note. Who reported it, and how to reach them, is never shown, and the name, contact and statement a person gave are deleted from the server 90 days after the decision.

If something of yours was taken down and you believe that was a mistake, because it is yours or you had the right to share it, say so the same way and it will be looked at again.

The public takedown log

Every copyright report this server has decided, the latest first. It is read from the server each time this page opens.

Loading the takedown log...

Appealing a decision

Every moderation decision on this server can be questioned, and the person who made it has to be able to say who they are and why they did it.

If you can still connect (muted, kicked, or a message removed): message an admin directly and ask. You do not need anyone's permission to send that message.
If you are banned you cannot connect at all, so no in-app route can work. Open an issue at github.com/Shaostoul/Humanity/issues. It is public, which cuts both ways: it means an appeal cannot be quietly ignored, and it means you should not put private details in it.

There is no fixed deadline and no limit on asking twice. If a moderator cannot explain a decision in terms of a rule on this page, the decision is wrong.

What this server does not have yet

Saying you have protections you do not have is itself a harm, so here is the honest state of it:

The moderation audit log is half built. A moderator can now take an action as a signed record: it names who acted, carries a written reason, and anyone can fetch it and check the signature without trusting this server. Where a moderator uses that path, the action is genuinely attributable rather than attributable-if-we-tell-you.
What is NOT done: the older ways of moderating (a typed command, a button) still change the database directly with no signed record, so not every action is logged yet, and this server has not yet published the signed policy that declares who may moderate it. Until both land, treat the log as a growing record rather than a complete one, and keep asking.
Reports have no tracked outcome. There is no status on a report, so you will not automatically hear what happened to one you filed. Ask if you want to know.
Reports only reach moderators who are online when you file them. There is no queue holding them for someone who was away.
A ban message gives no reason and no contact. All you see is that you were banned. That is why this page exists at a public address you can reach while banned.
There is no formal warning step in the software. A warning is a person telling you, not a recorded action.
No copyright agent is registered for this server yet. In the United States the law shields a site from blame for what its members upload only once the site registers an agent with the Copyright Office to receive takedown notices. This server has not done that yet. Until it does, only people an admin has verified can upload files at all (a new member cannot), and takedown requests come through the route above.

Progress on these is tracked in the open, in the signed moderation logs design.

Changing these rules

Rules should not change because one person decided so in private. This server has a governance page where anyone can put up a local rule proposal and everyone can vote on it, with each vote cryptographically signed by the person casting it. That is the intended route for amending this page.

If a rule here ever conflicts with the Humanity Accord, the Accord wins and the rule is void.

If you disagree with how this place is run

You can leave, and you can start your own. The software is public domain, a server is a single binary, and nothing here punishes you for running one. The Accord is explicit that forking a community is legitimate rather than disloyal. A space that could not be left, or could not be replaced, would not be worth being in.