# Communication Guidelines

These cover everything you can write where another person will read it: game
chat, private messages, forums, team pages, study comments and your profile.

## The short version

Talk to people the way you would across a real board.

## Specifically, do not

- **Insult or harass anyone**, including your opponent, in defeat or in victory
- **Post hateful material** about race, religion, nationality, gender, sexuality
  or disability. There is no joking exception
- **Post sexual content**, or anything involving minors in that context
- **Threaten anyone**, in any register, seriously or "as a joke"
- **Spam or advertise**, including your own channel, in unrelated places
- **Give or ask for advice during a live game.** Even friendly help decides a game
  that was not yours to decide
- **Share personal information** — anyone's, including your own

## In game chat specifically

Games are tense. "Good luck" and "good game" cover most of what needs saying.
Accusing your opponent of cheating in chat achieves nothing: they cannot answer
usefully, and it does not start an investigation. [Report them](/report) instead
and let the game finish.

Cursing at yourself after a blunder is not what this page is about. Directing it
at someone else is.

## If someone breaks these rules

Report them rather than replying. You can mute any player from their profile,
which stops their messages reaching you at all.

## What happens if you break them

Depending on severity: a warning, losing chat access for a while, or the account
being closed. If you think a decision was wrong, [appeal](/appeal) — do not open
a second account to argue about the first.