Community Guidelines: Examples and a Template to Copy

Community guidelines are the written rules that say how members should behave in a community, what content is not allowed, and what happens when someone breaks a rule. They are usually a short list shown at sign-up and linked from the places people post. A good set is specific enough that a moderator can point to a line and say “this is the rule”, and short enough that a new member actually reads it.

This guide covers what to put in a set of guidelines, three original examples you can adapt, a template, and how to turn the words into something your moderators can enforce.

What are community guidelines, and why do they matter?

Guidelines do two jobs at once. For members, they set expectations before anyone has a chance to be surprised. For moderators, they are the thing every decision is checked against, so a ruling reads as “the rule says this” and not “I felt like it”.

Without them, the first hard moderation call turns into an argument about whether the call was fair. With them, you still get arguments, but they are about the facts of a post and not about whether you were allowed to act.

It helps to separate three documents that people mix up:

• Community guidelines describe behaviour. They are written in plain language and updated as the community learns.
• Terms of service are the legal agreement between you and each member. They cover liability, account termination and ownership of content.
• A privacy policy says what data you collect and how it is used.

Guidelines can be friendly and specific. The other two have to be precise and are worth a legal read. Link all three from the sign-up page.

What should community guidelines include?

Most sets that work cover the same seven things. You do not need a heading for each, but each should be answered somewhere.

1. Purpose. One sentence on what the community is for. Every later rule is easier to explain when the purpose is clear.
2. How to treat people. The behaviour you expect, stated as something to do: “Disagree with the idea, not the person.”
3. What is not allowed. Harassment, hate, spam, impersonation, sharing private information, and anything illegal. Name the ones that matter to your members.
4. Rules about content. Self-promotion, links, off-topic posts, adult content, and how to label sensitive material.
5. Privacy and confidentiality. What stays inside the community. This matters a great deal in support groups, paid cohorts and professional networks.
6. How to report a problem. Where the report button is, who sees it, and that the person reported is not told who reported them.
7. Consequences and appeals. The steps you take, in order, and how a member can ask for a second look.

Write each rule as a short instruction with a reason attached. “No self-promotion outside the Showcase space, so the main feed stays useful to everyone” is easier to accept and easier to enforce than “No promotion.”

Put the do before the do-not

A list that opens with ten prohibitions feels hostile before anyone has said a word. Start with the behaviour you want, then list the limits. Members read the first three lines far more carefully than the last three.

Say what happens next

A rule with no stated consequence invites testing. You do not need to promise a specific penalty for every case, but you should say the shape of it: a warning first for a minor break, a temporary suspension for repeated breaks, removal for serious ones. That one paragraph does more to reduce disputes than any other line in the set.

What are some examples of community guidelines?

The three sets below are written for different communities on purpose. Copy the structure, then change the words to fit your own members. They are examples to adapt, not text to paste unchanged.

Example 1: a product support community

A support community exists so customers get working answers. The rules protect answer quality and keep private account details out of public view.

Purpose. This space is for getting and giving help with the product. Questions and answers here help the next person with the same problem.

1. Search first, then ask. Check for an existing thread. If you find one, add to it instead of starting a new one.
2. Give the details. Say what you tried, what you expected and what happened. Include the version and any error text.
3. Never post private data. Remove licence keys, passwords, customer names and email addresses from screenshots and logs before sharing.
4. Mark the answer. If a reply solved your problem, say so, so others can find it.
5. Be patient with questions. Everyone here was a beginner once. Answer the question that was asked.
6. Keep sales talk out. Do not advertise your own services in threads. Offers of paid help go in the Services space.
7. Feature requests go in the Ideas space, not in bug threads, so each one can be counted and discussed.

If a rule is broken: we will usually move the post or send a note first. Repeated breaks lead to a temporary suspension. You can appeal any suspension.

The pattern to notice: every rule protects either answer quality or private data. There is nothing in it about tone beyond one line, because the main risk in a support space is wasted time and leaked details, not heated debate.

Example 2: a paid coaching or course cohort

A paid cohort is smaller and more personal. People share things about their work and their finances, so confidentiality sits at the top.

Purpose. This group is where cohort members help each other finish the programme and apply it to real work.

1. What is said here stays here. Do not share another member’s story, numbers or screenshots outside the group without their say-so.
2. Show up for each other. Reply to a stuck post before posting your own win.
3. Give feedback that can be used. Say what works, what is unclear and one thing to try next.
4. No selling to the group. Members are here to learn, not to be pitched. Ask a host before sharing an offer.
5. Credit sources. If you share a template or an idea that is not yours, say where it came from.
6. Respect the schedule. Post questions in the right weekly thread so the next cohort can follow along.
7. Do not share access. Your seat is yours. Do not pass on links or the course material.

If a rule is broken: a host will message you privately first. Sharing another member’s private details, or sharing access, can end your membership.

Here the heaviest consequence is tied to the breaks that damage trust, which are confidentiality and sharing access. Note that a cohort can reasonably remove a member faster than an open community can, because people paid to be in a safe room.

Example 3: a local or neighbourhood community

A local group mixes people who live near each other and may know each other offline. Disputes get personal fast, so the rules lean on respect and safety.

Purpose. This is a space for neighbours to share news, ask for help and organise things together.

1. Use your real name so we know who we are talking to.
2. Be kind about people, even in a complaint. Talk about the problem, not the person’s character.
3. No posting about named individuals. Do not name or photograph private people to shame them. Use the report button and let the moderators deal with it.
4. Keep safety information accurate. Check before you share an alert about crime, missing people or outages. Edit or delete if it turns out to be wrong.
5. Protect children’s privacy. Do not post photos of other people’s children.
6. Keep politics in the Debate space, where the rules about tone are stricter.
7. Listings and sales go in the Marketplace space, one post per item.

If a rule is broken: we will remove the post and tell you why. Repeated breaks lead to a suspension.

The standout rule is the third. In a local group, the most damaging thing a member can do is name a neighbour in public, so the rule says what to do instead.

How do I write community guidelines from scratch?

Work in this order and the writing stays short.

1. Write the purpose in one sentence. If you cannot, the community is not ready for rules yet. Fix that first.
2. List the five worst things that could happen. Think of the real ones for your audience: a leaked screenshot, a pile-on, a spam wave, a sales pitch in every thread. Each becomes a rule.
3. Turn each into an instruction. Start the line with a verb. “Remove private data from screenshots” beats “Private data is prohibited.”
4. Add the reason in a few words. “…so the next person can find the answer” is enough.
5. Write the consequence ladder. Warning, then temporary suspension, then removal, and say that serious breaks can skip steps.
6. Add the report and appeal route. Say where the button is and how a member asks for a review.
7. Read it aloud to someone who is not in the community. If they have to ask what a line means, rewrite it.
8. Put the date on it and plan a review. Look again after the first hard case and after the first hundred members.

A fill-in template

[Community name] guidelines

Why we are here: [One sentence of purpose.]

What we ask of you

1. [Expected behaviour toward other members.]
2. [Expected quality of posts, such as search first, give details, label spoilers.]
3. [Expected care with private information.]

What is not allowed

1. [Harassment and hate, with an example from your community.]
2. [Spam and self-promotion, and where promotion is allowed.]
3. [Anything illegal or unsafe.]
4. [One rule specific to your topic.]

If you see a problem: use the report option on the post, comment, message or profile. The person you report is not told it was you.

If a rule is broken: [Warning, then suspension, then removal.] Serious breaks can skip steps.

If you think we got it wrong: [How to appeal.]

How do you enforce community guidelines?

Rules are a promise. If the first member who breaks one sees nothing happen, the rest of the set stops meaning anything. Enforcement is a small set of habits, and most of them can be run by several people in rotation.

Make reporting easy and safe

Members notice problems before moderators do. In BuddyNext, a member can report a post, a comment, a direct message, a media item or a member profile, choose a reason and add details. The person reported is not told who reported them, which makes it safe to flag a neighbour or a regular. A report does not remove anything by itself. It opens a case for a human to decide. See Reporting Content.

Use the same reasons in your guidelines that your members see in the report dialog, so a rule and a report line up.

Work from a queue, not from memory

Reports land in the moderation queue under Community Admin, then Moderation. Reports on the same item are merged into one row, with the reason, the first line of the content and how many members reported it, so a moderator acts once per piece of content. Space owners and space moderators see only their own space’s reports in that space’s Moderation tab. Site administrators can also see the same reports as a table in wp-admin. See Moderation Queue.

Match the response to the break

A ladder keeps decisions fair and keeps good members. BuddyNext supports warnings, counted strikes, temporary suspensions and, through accumulated strikes, automatic escalation. A reversed strike no longer counts, which helps when a mistake is found or an appeal succeeds. Details are in Moderating a Member.

A rough map from break to response:

Treat the table as a starting point. Your own community will want different lines in the middle.

Let the obvious cases be caught automatically

Content safeguards run before a post is saved. You can set banned words, blocked link domains, a limit on how many posts a member can make a minute, and a review step for a brand-new account’s first posts. Repeated identical messages are flagged for a moderator. These checks catch the dull, repetitive problems so moderators spend their time on the judgment calls. See Content Safeguards.

Use a content warning when removal is too strong

Some posts are acceptable but not for everyone: a spoiler, a graphic news image, a quote that includes strong language. A moderator can apply a content warning (NSFW, Spoilers, Violence or Strong Language) that blurs the post behind a label until a viewer chooses to show it. The post stays where it is. Only a moderator applies the warning, not the author. See Content Warnings.

Give people a way to appeal

Moderators get things wrong. A suspended member can write an appeal from their account status page, and a moderator approves it, which lifts the suspension, or denies it. Putting this in the open, and in the guidelines, signals that decisions can be reviewed. See Appeals.

Spread the work

Promote trusted members to moderator rather than carrying the queue alone. BuddyNext has member, moderator and admin roles for the whole community, and spaces have their own owner and moderator roles. See Community Roles and Moderators.

Where do community guidelines go?

A rulebook that sits on a page nobody visits does not work. Put it where the decision happens.

• At sign-up. Link it next to the join button. Some communities add a short “I have read the guidelines” tick.
• In the welcome flow. BuddyNext shows new members a short onboarding wizard after sign-up, which is a natural moment to point to the rules and the report option. See New-Member Onboarding Wizard.
• At the top of each space. Pin a short version, and add one or two rules specific to that space.
• In the report dialog and in moderator replies. When you act on a post, quote the line that applies.

If you run several audiences, keep one site-wide set and add a short addendum per space. A private paid space can be stricter about confidentiality than a public Q&A space on the same site, which is a good reason to use spaces with their own privacy.

How often should guidelines change?

Review them after your first hard moderation case, and again at fixed points such as every six months. Keep a short log of changes at the bottom so members can see what moved and when. When a rule changes, announce it, since a rule applied to a post made before the change feels like a trap.

Avoid growing the document each time something goes wrong. A rule added for one incident usually helps nobody the next time. If three incidents share a cause, write one rule for the cause.

Common mistakes in community guidelines

• Copying a rival’s page word for word. Their rules answer their problems. Yours should answer yours.
• Writing rules you will not enforce. Remove any rule you are not willing to act on.
• Vague words. “Be respectful” means something different to everyone. Add an example of what you mean.
• No route to report. If members cannot say where to flag a problem, they will leave or argue in public.
• One moderator, no backup. Policy only works when it survives a holiday. Share the queue.
• No appeal. A decision no one can challenge is a decision people stop trusting.

For help choosing the kind of community the rules should serve, see types of online communities. For the tools behind enforcement, see community management software.