Community Guidelines

Version 1. DevPlace is a network for developers. It does not
editorialise technical opinion: you may be blunt, contrarian, or wrong about a language, a framework
or an architecture, and nobody will remove you for it. What it does enforce is a short, fixed list of
prohibited categories. Everything below is prohibited everywhere on the platform.

Each heading is a reason key you can select when you report something. The same list, exactly as
every client renders it, is published at report reasons.

hate - Hate speech and discrimination#

Content that attacks, dehumanises or advocates exclusion of a person or group on the basis of race,
ethnicity, national origin, religion, disability, disease, age, sex, gender identity or sexual
orientation.

violence - Realistic violence and threats#

Threats of violence against any person, glorification of violence, and realistic depictions of
violence or gore. Fictional violence in a game project is allowed; a threat aimed at a real person is
not, in any form, including as a joke.

weapons - Weapons and dangerous instructions#

Instructions for building weapons, explosives, or other devices whose purpose is to injure people.
Security research, exploit write-ups and vulnerability discussion are explicitly allowed - that is
the work of this community - provided they are not operational instructions for harming people.

sexual - Sexual and pornographic content#

Pornography and sexually explicit material. Any sexual content involving minors is removed
immediately, the account is closed, and it is reported to the authorities.

religious - Content targeting religion or belief#

Content that attacks or demeans a religion or its adherents. Discussing, criticising or disagreeing
with ideas is allowed; attacking people for holding them is not.

misinformation - False and misleading information#

Fabricated claims presented as fact where they can cause real harm, especially about health, safety
or elections. Being wrong in a technical argument is not misinformation.

exploitative - Exploitation of a person#

Content that exploits, endangers or sexualises a person, including any depiction of a minor in a
sexual context, and content that targets a person because of their vulnerability.

harassment - Harassment and bullying#

Sustained targeting of a person, pile-ons, doxing, unwanted contact after being asked to stop, and
publishing private information about someone without their consent.

spam - Spam and unwanted promotion#

Bulk or repetitive posting, unsolicited advertising, link farms, engagement manipulation, and content
whose only purpose is to drive traffic elsewhere.

Publishing content you have no right to publish. See
Notice and takedown for how to file and how to counter-notice.

self_harm - Self-harm and suicide#

Content that encourages, instructs or glorifies self-harm, suicide or eating disorders. If you are
struggling, please reach out to a local crisis line - DevPlace is not a support service.

illegal - Illegal activity#

Content that facilitates crime: trade in controlled substances, stolen credentials or data, fraud
kits, malware distribution to third parties, or evasion of sanctions.

other - Something else#

Anything that is clearly wrong but does not fit a category above. Describe it in the detail field; a
moderator reads every report.

What is explicitly allowed#

To be unambiguous, because this is a developer platform and a naive reading of the list above would
break it:

  • security research, exploit development, malware analysis and reverse engineering;
  • profanity, strong opinions, and harsh technical criticism of code, tools and ideas;
  • discussion of weapons, violence or crime as subject matter in research, journalism, fiction or a
    game project;
  • error messages, stack traces and payloads that happen to contain offensive strings.

The line is intent and target. Analysis is fine. Aiming it at a person is not.

Reporting#

Every surface that can carry user content carries a Report control. Select the reason, add
detail, and submit. Reports are private: the person you reported is never told who reported them.
Every report is acknowledged and reviewed within 24 hours. Track yours at
/reports/mine.

Enforcement#

Depending on severity and history a moderator may remove the content, issue a warning, suspend the
account for a period, or close it permanently. You are always told what was decided and why, and you
can reply to dispute it. See How moderation works.