Community Code of Conduct

1. Where This Applies

This Code of Conduct covers the community spaces IllumAlign LLC runs outside the ToolPool.Garden app. That means our Discord server, our subreddits, the replies and comments on our social accounts, and any event we host in person or online. Take part in one of them and this is what you are agreeing to.

What you do inside the app is governed by the Acceptable Use Policy and the Prohibited Items list instead, which cover listings, chats, reviews, profiles and pools. The two sets of rules say much the same thing in different places, and section 9 explains how one can reach the other.

It applies to everyone in those spaces, whether or not you hold a ToolPool.Garden account, and that includes the moderators and us. Direct messages to somebody you met through our community count, and so does how you behave at an event.

You must be 18 or older to take part, the same as the app. Some of these services set a lower minimum of their own, and ours does not change to match theirs.

2. The Short Version

Be kind, and assume the person you are replying to meant well. Do not harass anyone, and when somebody asks you to stop, stop. If something goes wrong, tell us at [email protected] and we will look at it.

3. What We Expect

• Treat people the way you would in the workshop of somebody you had just met.
• Welcome beginners. A question you find obvious is usually somebody's first time asking it.
• Argue with the point rather than the person. You can disagree with somebody without holding them in contempt.
• Take a correction well, and apologize when you get something wrong.
• Take a no the first time you hear it, whether it is about lending or about anything else.
• Keep what somebody tells you in one channel out of the other ones.

4. What Is Not Allowed

• Harassment of any kind: unwanted sexual attention, following somebody from channel to channel, repeated contact after being asked to stop, or piling on.
• Slurs, hate speech, and demeaning somebody over race, ethnicity, national origin, immigration status, religion, disability, age, sex, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, body, or appearance.
• Threats of violence, wishing harm on somebody, glorifying violence, or encouraging anyone to hurt themselves.
• Sexual content, gore, and shock material.
• Posting another person's private information without their consent, including their legal name, address, workplace, phone number, or photographs of where they live. This holds even when you found it somewhere public.
• Spam, advertising, recruiting, chain messages, referral links, and unsolicited direct messages selling something.
• Impersonating another member, a moderator, or platform staff, including through a display name or an avatar chosen to be mistaken for someone else.
• Malware, phishing links, pirated material, and anything else that puts the people reading at risk.
• Arranging, advertising, or asking after anything on the Prohibited Items list, and using the community as a way around the rule that no money moves between users for a borrow.
• Coming back after a removal under another account, and using a community space to reach somebody who blocked you, a pool that removed you, or an account we disabled.

This list does not cover everything. A moderator can act on conduct that is plainly against this code even where no line above quite names it.

5. Anonymity Carries Over

In the app, the owner of a tool or a skill is anonymous to other members until they reveal themselves in a chat, and a review is anonymous on a profile. Coming here to work out who somebody is undoes that.

• Do not announce or speculate about who owns a listing or who wrote a review.
• Do not tie somebody's handle here to their account, their name, or their pool unless they have said you can.
• Do not pressure anyone into revealing themselves, here or in the app.
• Somebody who revealed themselves to you in one chat, about one listing, has not revealed themselves to the community.

6. If a Borrow Goes Wrong

We are not a party to any borrow, and we do not rule on disputes about one. The Liability Waiver spells that out, and none of it changes once you are in a channel.

So do not post about a member who has not returned something, and do not use a channel to put pressure on somebody about a tool or to organize other people against a member or a pool. Take it to the pool's admins, to the report flow in the app, or to [email protected].

Asking for advice is welcome. "How do people usually handle a tool that comes back damaged?" is a fine thing to ask a channel; naming the member who still has yours is not.

7. Moderators

Our community spaces are moderated by platform staff and by anyone we give a moderator role to. They can delete messages, rename or lock a thread, mute, remove, and ban.

When a moderator asks you to drop something, drop it there and then. If you think the call was wrong, take it up with them privately or email us, rather than arguing it out in the channel. A moderator is held to this code like everybody else, and a report about one goes to [email protected] instead of to the moderators.

8. Reporting Something

Email [email protected], or send a direct message to a moderator in the server. Tell us what happened, where it happened, roughly when, and whether it is still going on. Links or screenshots help, and a report without them is still worth sending.

• You can report something that happened to somebody else, and you do not have to be sure it broke a rule.
• We keep a report as confidential as acting on it allows, and we do not hand your name to the person you reported unless you tell us we may.
• Retaliating against somebody for reporting is treated as seriously as the original conduct.
• Do not file a report you know to be false, which is a violation in itself.

If anybody is in immediate danger, call your local emergency services first and tell us afterwards.

9. What Happens Next

Most cases move up a ladder:

• A word from a moderator, in public or in private, saying what was wrong and asking you to stop.
• A warning, which can come with a period of no contact with the people involved.
• A temporary removal from the community spaces, for a stated length of time.
• A permanent ban.

Serious conduct skips the ladder. We look at how bad it was, what was meant by it and what has happened before, and we do not promise a warning first.

Where somebody's safety is involved the two sides reach each other. What you do in a community space can cost you your ToolPool.Garden account, and what you do in the app can cost you your place here. Anything we do to an account follows the Acceptable Use Policy, including the appeal it offers.

To appeal a decision about a community space, email [email protected] and tell us what was decided and why you disagree. A person will look at it again and tell you the outcome.

10. These Are Other Companies' Services

None of these spaces runs on anything we own. Each one sits on a platform another company operates, and that company sets the terms and the privacy policy you agreed to when you opened an account there. It enforces its own rules whatever we think, and it can restrict or remove you without us. Our Privacy Policy describes the ToolPool.Garden app, and it covers none of them.

What you post in one of these spaces is held on that company's systems rather than ours, and moderators can read it, including messages you delete. Treat a channel as somewhere your words stay, and keep anything you would not want held there out of it.

Taking part is optional. Nothing in the app depends on joining any of them, and leaving one costs you nothing on ToolPool.Garden.

11. Changes

We may revise this code as the community grows. The date at the top of this page says when it last changed, and we will say so in the spaces a material change affects.