Comitry works because people are honest in it. That only happens if it feels safe. These are the expectations, and they apply everywhere on Comitry: groups, direct messages, profiles, and anything a coach publishes.
They form part of the Terms of Service. Breaking them can cost you your account.
Assume people are struggling
Someone posting in a wellbeing group may be having their worst week. Read generously, reply as you would to a friend, and do not assume the worst about a badly worded message.
Share your experience, not your prescription
"This helped me" is welcome. "You should do this" usually is not, especially about food, training or medication. You do not know the other person's history.
Never tell someone to stop taking prescribed medication, change a dose, or ignore advice they have been given by a qualified professional.
What people share stays here
Do not repeat what someone said in a group anywhere else, screenshot it, or bring it up outside the context it was shared in. This applies to coaches too.
No numbers as targets
Specific calorie counts, goal weights, and body-fat percentages presented as targets are not allowed, even framed as personal experience. For someone with an eating disorder they function as instructions.
Talking about your own experience without the numbers is fine and often more useful.
Do not present yourself as clinical
Do not offer a diagnosis, claim to treat conditions, or describe yourself as a therapist, psychologist, doctor, dietitian or nurse unless you genuinely hold that qualification and it is accurate where you are. Coaches have a scope they have agreed to, and members are held to the same line.
Disagree without contempt
You can think a training approach is nonsense. Say so about the approach, not the person.
Do not sell, and do not recruit
Comitry has one way for coaches to charge for content: a subscription on their profile. Direct messaging people to sell them things is not it. Neither is multi-level marketing, supplements, "programmes" hosted somewhere else, or anything that moves a person off Comitry to be sold to.
Nothing that is not yours
Do not post content you do not have the right to share, and do not post anyone else's private information: their name, address, workplace, contacts, images, or anything else that identifies them without their agreement.
Nothing illegal, nothing about children
No content that is illegal where you are or where we operate. Comitry is for adults only, and any sexual content involving a minor is reported to the authorities and ends the account immediately and permanently.
Do not attack the platform
No scraping, no automated bulk access, no attempts to break, overload or work around the way Comitry is meant to be used, and no accounts created to get around a removal.
If someone seems to be in danger
Do not try to handle it alone, and do not stay silent.
- Encourage them towards real help: a professional, or the services in their own country. Comitry does not list those, and is not the place to look for them
- Report the message, so it reaches us rather than staying with you
- If you believe there is immediate danger, contact your local emergency services
Comitry is not a crisis service and nobody here is on call. Reporting a message does not summon help to another person, and we do not promise a response within any particular time. If someone's life may be at risk, emergency services are the only route that answers.
You are not responsible for another person's safety, and you are not expected to be. Passing it on is the right thing to do.
Reporting and blocking
Anyone can report a message, a person, a group, or a piece of content, and say why. Anyone can block another member, which stops them from contacting you. A block belongs to you: it cannot be overridden by a coach, a moderator, or us.
Reporting is free and always will be. You never need a subscription to raise a safety concern.
What happens when these are broken
Depending on severity: content removed, a warning, a temporary mute, removal from a group, loss of the ability to publish or sell, or the account closed.
- We tell you what was decided and which rule it was based on, unless the law stops us.
- You can ask us to look again, and a different person reviews it where we reasonably can.
- Every moderation action is recorded with who took it and why, and can be reversed.
Coaches are held to a higher standard, because people come to them for guidance and some of them pay for it.