Community Guidelines: Writing Rules That Users Actually Read

Most community teams still believe a longer rules page means fewer problems. I learned the hard way that the opposite is usually true: the more you write, the less anyone reads, and the more moderation you end up doing.

The short version: community guidelines that people actually read are short, layered, written like a human, and wired directly into your product. Put 5 to 10 non-negotiable rules at the top, write them in plain language, link to details for edge cases, and then reflect those rules in UI, prompts, reports, and mod tools. If your rules do not show up at the moment of action, they might as well not exist.

Why most community guidelines fail

Most guideline pages fail for three boring reasons, not because people are bad or platforms are doomed:

• They read like legal documents, not like instructions.
• They are written once, then forgotten by everyone including staff.
• They are not connected to the product flow, only to a separate URL.

If you fix those three, you already outperform most large platforms.

Write guidelines as tools for decisions, not as corporate disclaimers.

You are not trying to win a legal argument. You are trying to help moderators, power users, and new users make the same decision the same way, without guessing what you “meant.”

The 4 jobs your guidelines must do

1. Tell users what kind of community this is

People read rules through the lens of “what is this place for?”

If you do not state the purpose clearly, users will import expectations from Reddit, Discord, Stack Overflow, or whatever they used yesterday. That is how you get arguments like “but free speech!” in a niche support forum where you just want bug reports, not politics.

Your guidelines should answer in one paragraph:

• What users are here to do
• What users are not here to do
• Roughly who it is for

Example:

This community exists for people running small SaaS products who want practical help with infrastructure, billing, and support. It is not a place for general startup motivation, crypto speculation, or political debate.

That short paragraph does more work than 30 lines of vague “be respectful” text. It sets context. Rules will make more sense inside that frame.

2. Set clear boundaries on content and behavior

You need to spell out what is allowed, what is not, and what sits in the gray area. Users do not need every exception upfront, but they do need clear patterns.

Common rule buckets:

• Content rules (what can be posted)
• Behavior rules (how users treat each other)
• Commercial rules (self-promo, affiliate links, selling)
• Security/privacy rules (doxxing, scraping, exploits)
• Meta rules (arguing about moderation, ban evasion)

If your rules only talk about “respect,” you will still drown in spam, link dumps, and off-topic debates. Vague values look good on a slide deck and fail in production.

3. Give moderators something to point at

Moderators need stable language they can quote. If they cannot copy-paste one line that matches a situation, they will start improvising, and your community will start believing moderation is random.

Every serious rule should be linkable and quotable in 1 or 2 sentences, such as:

We remove posts that are primarily self-promotion or link drops without context. If you want to promote your product, use the “Show & Tell” category and follow those posting rules.

Moderation messages become much easier:

We removed this thread under our “No link drops / low-effort promos” rule. You can read it here: /guidelines#link-drops

Consistency builds trust more than any “We value transparency” paragraph ever will.

4. Teach newcomers how not to break things by accident

Most new users do not read rules. The ones who do are usually the least likely to break them. That is the paradox.

You fix this by designing your guidelines as a layered system:

• A short “start here” for new users
• Contextual reminders inside UI (post form, report dialog, etc.)
• A deeper set of rules and examples for power users and moderators

Think of the guidelines page as a “source of truth,” but accept that the interface is where most learning happens.

The structure of guidelines users will actually read

You do not need a fancy content strategy deck. You need a simple, predictable structure.

Section	Goal	Length
Purpose & expectations	Explain what the community is for and not for	1 short paragraph
“Top 7” non-negotiable rules	Cover most real-world moderation cases	7 bullet points, 1 line each
Content rules (detail)	Clarify allowed / banned / restricted content	Subsections with examples
Behavior rules (detail)	Clarify what “no harassment” and “no abuse” actually mean	Subsections with examples
Enforcement & appeals	Explain what happens when rules are broken	Short, boring, precise
Change log	Show that rules evolve, with version history	Bullet list with timestamps

Opening: state the purpose, not your values

Values like “respect,” “inclusion,” and “safety” are fine, but they are vague. Purpose is concrete.

Bad opening:

We are committed to fostering a welcoming and inclusive space where everyone feels valued and respected.

Clear opening:

This community exists for people who run online communities, forums, and Discord servers. The goal is to share practical experience, troubleshoot problems, and compare tools. If you are here mainly to advertise, recruit, or farm DMs, this community is not for you.

The second version tells a spammer they are in the wrong place without you writing a 500-word essay about “spam.”

The “Top rules” block: your real contract with users

After the purpose line, present your short list of rules in bullet form. No paragraphs, no nested bullets yet.

Example set for a technical community:

• Stay on topic: hosting, infrastructure, monitoring, performance, and operations.
• No personal attacks, slurs, or harassment. Critique ideas, not people.
• No spam, link dumps, or AI-generated noise without clear labeling and context.
• Tag sensitive content and security topics clearly, and avoid sharing exploits that can be abused in the wild.
• Disclose your affiliation when recommending products or services.
• One account per person. Do not share accounts or create new ones to evade bans.
• Moderators can remove content that harms signal-to-noise, even if it passes the letter of the rules.

This is what most users will read. Treat it like your real policy surface.

If a rule is not important enough to put in your top 5 to 10 list, think hard before enforcing it strictly.

Buried rules that are enforced harshly create conspiracy theories and long “mod abuse” threads.

Writing each rule so people cannot pretend they misunderstood

Every serious rule should have three parts:

• A short label
• A one-sentence rule
• 1 to 3 examples, including a gray area case

Rule labels that match how users talk

Do not name rules like a lawyer. Name them like a user.

Bad labels:

• “Civility and decorum guidelines”
• “Prohibition on self-serving promotional material”

Better labels:

• “No personal attacks”
• “No spam or link dumps”

The URL slug should match the label: /guidelines#no-personal-attacks. Short, clear, quotable.

Rule sentences that say what, not why

Your one-liner for each rule should describe a concrete action, not a philosophy lesson.

Bad:

We value respect and ask that you conduct yourself in a way that promotes healthy dialogue.

Clear:

Do not insult, mock, or threaten other users. Challenge ideas instead of attacking people.

You can add a short line of reasoning, but keep it second:

This helps keep discussions focused on solving problems instead of scoring points.

Examples: the part your lawyers will hate and your moderators will love

Examples are where rules become real. That is also where most communities cut corners.

For “No spam or link dumps”:

• Allowed: “We moved our app from Provider A to Provider B and cut response times by 30%. Here is a chart and the steps we took: [details].”
• Not allowed: “Check out my new hosting panel! [link]” with no context or discussion.
• Borderline: “We wrote a guide to reducing cold starts in serverless functions: [link].” If the post does not engage in discussion or answer questions, it will probably be removed as promotion.

For “No personal attacks”:

• Allowed: “I think that approach is fragile. You are relying on a single Redis node for everything.”
• Not allowed: “You are clueless. Stop giving advice.”
• Borderline: “If you roll your own crypto in 2026, you should not be trusted with prod.” Strong language, but directed at the idea (“roll your own crypto”) rather than a specific person. Moderators may intervene if threads become hostile.

Examples are where you make the tradeoffs visible instead of pretending everything is black and white.

If users see that you admit gray areas, they complain less when a moderator has to make a judgment call.

Balancing free speech, safety, and signal-to-noise

Technical communities attract users who are deeply attached to “free speech” ideas. At the same time, many are tired of every thread turning into Twitter.

You will need to spell out:

• What you protect (honest criticism, strong opinions, whistleblowing)
• What you do not allow (harassment, dogpiling, hate speech, doxxing)
• What you remove for quality reasons (off-topic rants, repetitive arguments, low-effort memes)

Draw a line between disagreement and abuse

You can be quite direct:

Strong disagreement is fine. Abuse is not. If your goal is to humiliate someone, you are in the wrong place.

Spell out indicators of abuse:

• Direct insults (“idiot”, “moron”, “garbage dev”)
• Hostile generalizations about entire groups
• Contacting someone off-platform to continue an argument
• Posting edited images or memes aimed at a specific user

Do not leave “abuse” as an undefined word. Users will stretch it in every direction based on their preferences.

Explain your stance on “off-topic but not harmful”

One recurring headache: harmless but distracting posts. Memes, random chat, politics in a tech forum, tech in a politics forum, etc.

Your guidelines can make this simple:

We remove content that overwhelms the main purpose of the community, even if it is not harmful in itself. If you want to talk about off-topic subjects, use [off-topic channel] or take it elsewhere.

And then give two or three examples connected to your niche. Example for hosting and communities:

• “Memes about outage horror stories” might belong in a dedicated “water cooler” channel, not in “Production Incidents.”
• “General AI ethics debate” might be off-topic in a channel for concrete deployment issues.

You are allowed to say “this is not the right place for that” without also writing an essay about free speech.

Designing rules for self-promotion, vendors, and affiliates

If your community touches tech, you will attract vendors, consultants, and would-be influencers. If you do not set these rules clearly, either:

• The signal collapses under constant selling, or
• Everyone hides their interests, and trust collapses when it is exposed.

Disclose your interests upfront

You want rules that encourage honest disclosure instead of punishing it.

Example rule block:

• If you work for a company or profit from a product you mention, say so clearly in the post.
• Affiliate links are allowed only if you also include a non-affiliate link next to them and label them as affiliate links.
• Astroturfing (pretending to be a customer when you are staff or paid) will get you banned.

Example language:

Users trust advice more when they understand the context. Hiding your affiliation is worse than having one.

Vendors who cannot live with that rule rarely improve your community anyway.

Carve out narrow lanes for promotion

A common pattern that works:

• A “Show & Tell” or “Launches” category with stricter posting rules
• Promotion allowed only there, with a frequency cap (for example, once per month per product)
• All other channels: promotion only when directly relevant to a question, with disclosure

Guideline example:

If someone asks for recommendations, you may mention your own product if it genuinely fits the request and you clearly disclose your role. Do not reply to every “hosting” thread with the same pitch.

Your moderators need clear language like “replying to multiple threads per week with the same pitch counts as spam.”

Enforcement rules: what happens when users break things

You cannot keep rules readable if your enforcement description turns into a treatise. Still, you need enough detail to avoid “mod roulette.”

Level	Typical reason	Action
0: Soft nudge	New user mistake, minor off-topic	DM or inline note, no record needed
1: Warning	Clear rule broken, no prior pattern	Formal warning, may log in mod notes
2: Short mute / timeout	Repeat behavior after warning, heated argument	24 to 72 hour read-only or chat mute
3: Temporary ban	Serious rule breach, ongoing disruption	1 week to 1 month ban, with re-entry expectations
4: Permanent ban	Hate speech, threats, doxxing, ban evasion, or long pattern	Account removed, appeals limited

Spell out zero-tolerance areas

Some behavior should skip right past “warnings.” You need to say that cleanly.

For example:

• Sharing private information (doxxing) about any user, including real name, address, workplace, without permission
• Credible threats of physical harm or coordinated harassment
• Content that seriously encourages self-harm or violence

Guideline sentence:

Serious safety violations can lead to an immediate permanent ban without prior warnings.

You should not promise “three strikes” in every case. That kind of false fairness backfires.

Explain appeals without turning it into customer support

You want to give users a channel to contest decisions, but you do not want a part-time job debating bans.

Example rules:

• Appeals go to a dedicated email or form, not public threads.
• Appeals are only considered after 48 hours, to prevent heated back-and-forth.
• Moderators are not required to explain every decision in depth, but they should give a rule reference.

Short text:

If you believe a moderation action was a mistake, you can appeal once using [link]. Include links and context. We do not handle appeals in public threads or DMs to individual moderators.

That one rule line will save your team many long “why was my post removed” meta-threads.

Designing guidelines that integrate with your product

Many communities stop at writing a “guidelines” URL. Then they act surprised when nobody reads it. The fix is simple: surface the rules where decisions happen.

In the post editor

Add short reminders right where content is created:

• Checkbox: “I have read the ‘No spam or link dumps’ rule.”
• Inline hint: “Link only posts are removed. Add context: what did you try, what did you learn?”
• Category-specific hints: “In ‘Incidents’, we expect timelines, metrics, and lessons learned.”

These lines are part of your real guidelines. Keep them in sync with the main page.

A single sentence in the editor is often more influential than four paragraphs on a separate rules page.

In the report and block flows

Reporting tools can quietly teach your rules as well:

• Report reasons that match your rule labels: “Harassment,” “Spam / self-promo,” “Off-topic,” “Sensitive content,” etc.
• Subtext that mirrors the rule definition, such as “Spam: repetitive or low-effort promotion, link dumps, or generated content posted only to gain clicks.”

Every click here is another micro-repetition of your guidelines.

In moderator tools

Moderators need shortcuts that keep messages consistent:

• Pre-written actions tied to guidelines sections: “Remove as spam, link to /guidelines#spam,” “Soft warning on tone, link to /guidelines#personal-attacks.”
• Reason templates that auto-insert the relevant rule line.

Example:

Your post was removed under our “No spam or link dumps” rule: “We remove posts that are primarily self-promotion or link drops without context.” You can post a revised version that focuses on the technical details and your lessons learned.

With tooling, moderators spend 5 seconds on this instead of 2 minutes crafting a custom message each time.

Making guidelines readable without dumbing them down

You are writing for technical users. They can handle detail. They will not forgive sloppy writing.

Plain language, not brand language

Keep sentences short. Avoid marketing speak. Avoid internal slogans.

Bad:

Our community strives to be a vibrant hub where users can synergize and unlock the full potential of collaborative knowledge-sharing.

Clear:

This community exists to share real experience building, hosting, and running online services. Share what you have tried, what failed, and what worked.

If a sentence would embarrass you printed on a command line, throw it out.

Layer your content for skimmers and nerds

Different readers want different depth.

Structure:

• Top: 1 paragraph purpose + 5 to 10 short rules
• Middle: sections for content, behavior, commercial, enforcement
• Bottom: deep dives with examples and edge cases

Users who care can scroll. Users who do not care at least saw the “shape” of the rules at the top.

Use formatting like an engineer, not like a marketer

Useful patterns:

• Short paragraphs
• Code blocks or inline code font for “do this / not this” patterns, when relevant
• Tables for comparison, as above
• Anchors for each rule so you can deep link

Keep font faces, sizes, and colors calm. You are building a spec, not a pitch deck.

The change log: stop surprising long-time users

Guidelines will change. New spam patterns appear. New topics emerge. Platforms add features. Pretending the rules are static is fantasy.

A simple change log at the bottom of the page prevents half of the “You moved the goalposts” anger.

Example format:

• 2026-01-10: Added “AI-generated content” under spam rules. Labeled expectation that generated text must be clearly marked and substantially edited by a human.
• 2025-11-02: Clarified that affiliate links must be labeled and accompanied by non-affiliate links.
• 2025-07-18: Added zero-tolerance rules for doxxing and threats, with direct path to permanent ban.

You can also add a short line:

We update these guidelines when we see new patterns in the community. Major changes are announced in [Announcements] with a link to this change log.

This keeps trust higher when you adapt to abuse you did not anticipate.

Examples of real guideline phrasing for tech communities

This section pulls together the parts into concrete text you can adapt.

Purpose section sample

This community exists for people building and running web services, from small side projects to large-scale platforms. Topics include hosting, performance, observability, reliability, security basics, and the human side of running infrastructure. It is not a place for generic business advice, general news commentary, or political arguments.

Top rules sample

• Stay on topic: hosting, infrastructure, reliability, and operations.
• Focus on ideas, not people. No insults, slurs, or harassment.
• No spam or low-effort promotion. Share what you learned, not just your links.
• Label sensitive content and avoid sharing active exploits without a clear disclosure path.
• Disclose when you have a financial or employment link to a product you mention.
• One person, one account. No ban evasion or shared logins.
• Moderators may remove content that harms signal-to-noise, even if it fits the letter of the rules.

Content rules sample

Heading text:

We want content that helps others solve real problems. Low-effort posts drag the quality down and are removed.

Then list:

• High-signal posts usually:
  • Describe a real setup, incident, or constraint
  • Include data: error messages, metrics, configs (with secrets removed)
  • Explain what you already tried
  • Share tradeoffs, not just “X is better than Y”
• Low-signal posts usually:
  • Ask broad “What stack should I use?” without context
  • Drop a link to a blog, YouTube, or product with no summary
  • Consist mostly of generated text without personal experience

Include one or two example posts with “Accepted” and “Removed” tags.

Behavior rules sample

You can group behaviors:

• Disagreement:
  • Allowed: “I think this guidance is risky for new users. Here is why I recommend a different approach.”
  • Not allowed: “People who do this are idiots and deserve their outages.”
• Contact outside the community:
  • Do not chase people across platforms to continue an argument from here.
  • Do not share DMs or private messages without permission, except when reporting harassment to moderators.

Short reminder:

You do not have to like everyone here. You do have to treat them as humans with limited time and attention.

Testing your guidelines against real incidents

A good set of guidelines can be used like a unit test suite. Take real or hypothetical incidents and see if your rules cover them without bending.

Incident: AI spam flood

Scenario: New users posting generated “Top 10 hosting tips” articles in every tag.

Checkpoints:

• Do you have a rule mentioning generated content, spam, or link dumps?
• Do you clearly say that low-effort generated content will be removed?
• Do you have enforcement steps for repeated spam?

If not, you add a new bullet under “No spam” and update the change log.

Incident: heated vendor comparison thread

Scenario: Thread about Provider A vs Provider B turns into personal attacks and accusations of shilling.

Checkpoints:

• Do your behavior rules cover personal attacks explicitly?
• Do your commercial rules require disclosure of affiliations?
• Do you have language that allows locking a thread that is beyond saving?

You might add a rule like:

Moderators may lock threads that generate more heat than light, after warning participants. If a topic repeatedly fails to produce constructive discussion, we may restrict or disallow it.

Incident: political debate in an outage thread

Scenario: Large cloud outage leads to political arguments about regulation, national policy, etc.

Checkpoints:

• Does your purpose section give you cover to say “not here”?
• Do you have an “off-topic” rule that is specific, not vague?

You may need to refine your “Off-topic” rule to mention this pattern:

Major incidents often connect to wider social or political topics. This community is focused on technical and operational aspects. Threads that drift into general politics or culture wars will be redirected or closed.

Keeping guidelines alive without turning them into a second job

Some teams rewrite guidelines every quarter. Others do not touch them for five years. Both are mistakes.

Aim for:

• Small updates when a new pattern appears more than a couple of times
• A light review every 6 to 12 months
• Public notes only when something meaningful changes

Signals that your guidelines need work

You do not need surveys to know when rules fail. Watch for:

• Moderators disagreeing often on what to do in similar cases
• Users frequently saying “I had no idea this was against the rules”
• Long arguments about moderation instead of the topic at hand
• Clear abuse hiding behind technicalities of vague rules

These are not “user problems.” They are spec problems.

If smart users keep misreading a rule the same way, that is feedback on the rule, not on their morals.

Small, boring improvements beat big rewrites

Rather than launching “Guidelines 2.0,” fix obvious weak spots:

• Add one example under an abused rule.
• Split a long rule into two shorter ones with clearer labels.
• Update one line in the editor hint to match the rule.

Then log it at the bottom of the page. Over a year, this gives you a mature guidelines set without drama.

Common mistakes to avoid

1. Writing guidelines for bad actors instead of normal users

If you write every rule around worst-case trolls, you punish everyone else with a wall of text that still does not stop trolls. Write for the 90% who mean well but lack context. Use enforcement, not wording, against the 1% who are there to cause trouble.

2. Mixing legal terms with community rules

Keep “Terms of Service” and “Community Guidelines” separate. Terms are for lawyers and edge-case liability. Guidelines are for day-to-day behavior. When you mix them, neither group reads them properly.

3. Promise of “fairness” you cannot deliver

Avoid lines like “All users are treated exactly the same” or “Every decision will be explained in detail.” Experience says you will not always hit that bar. Say what you actually do:

Moderators try to apply these rules consistently. We are human and make mistakes. Appeals help us correct those.

Users handle that level of honesty better than fake perfection.

4. Over-relying on “common sense”

“Use common sense” sounds efficient, but it hides your actual expectations behind your own bias. What is obvious to a veteran sysadmin in Europe may not be obvious to a student in India.

Use “common sense” only as seasoning, not as the rule itself. For example:

If you are about to post private information about someone else, stop. Ask yourself whether you would be comfortable with your own data shared in the same way. If in doubt, do not post it.

There is still a rule behind it: “Do not post private information about others.”

Bringing it together

Community guidelines that users actually read are not about clever phrasing. They are about respect for the reader’s time and a realistic view of how people behave.

If you:

• State the community purpose first
• List 5 to 10 non-negotiable rules in plain language
• Back those with examples and practical enforcement levels
• Integrate rules into UI flows where decisions happen
• Keep a simple change log and adjust over time

you end up with a rule set that feels less like a chore and more like what it should be: a shared spec for how to keep the signal high and the nonsense tolerable.