Rules

Sanctum Chamber is built for open, cross-belief conversation. These rules are deliberately short and specific so you always know where the line is. They apply everywhere on the site — live chat rooms, private messages, blogs, and Janice. Our promise: rules are published, enforcement decisions are logged, everyone is treated consistently, significant actions get a second set of eyes, and you always have a real path to appeal.

The rules

1. Treat people with respect. Disagree with ideas as hard as you like, but not with slurs, targeted harassment, threats, or intimidation.
   Violations: racial/ethnic/religious slurs aimed at a person or group, telling someone to harm themselves, threats of violence, coordinated pile-ons.
2. Argue in good faith. Debate the point, not the person. No deliberate trolling, sealioning, or derailing to provoke a reaction.
   Violations: personal attacks in place of an argument, following a user around to bait them, flooding a serious thread with noise.
3. Don’t facilitate illegal activity. You are free to discuss almost anything — news, history, policy and law reform, recovery, security research, hard and controversial topics. What is prohibited is providing instructions, encouragement, coordination, or facilitation of a crime.
   Prohibited: step-by-step instructions to hack an account, sourcing or buying illegal drugs, distributing pirated files or keys, planning violence or fraud, sharing sexual content involving minors (reported immediately).
   Allowed: talking about a news event, the history of a drug war, debating whether a law should change, sharing your recovery story, general cybersecurity education.
4. No spam or flooding. Don’t repeat the same message, wall-of-CAPS, or dump disruptive formatting.
   Violations: pasting the same line repeatedly, flooding a room to push messages off-screen, mass-tagging users.
5. No unauthorized advertising or solicitation. Don’t drop referral links, promote other services, or DM ads without staff permission.
   Violations: posting affiliate/referral links, cold-DMing members to sell something, recruiting for off-site groups.
6. Protect security and privacy. No malware or phishing links, and don’t post other people’s private information.
   Violations: sharing malicious links, phishing attempts, posting someone’s real name, address, or contact details without consent (doxxing).
7. Respect room topics and staff guidance. Follow the posted focus of each room, and don’t evade a mute or ban with alternate accounts.
   Violations: repeatedly going off-topic after being asked, ban evasion via alt accounts, ignoring a moderator’s direct instruction.
8. Legal, medical and financial topics: discuss, don’t prescribe. Conversation is welcome, but this isn’t professional advice. Cite credible sources when you make factual claims.
   Please don’t present personal legal/medical/financial instructions as professional advice; point people to qualified help for their specific situation.

How enforcement works

We enforce in steps, and the response is matched to the behavior. Every action is recorded.

• Level 1 — Reminder. A public or private nudge to correct course. No penalty.
• Level 2 — Temporary mute. Minutes to hours, for continued low-level disruption after a reminder.
• Level 3 — Temporary suspension. Hours to days, for repeated or more serious violations.
• Level 4 — Permanent ban. For severe or persistent violations.

Severe violations — credible threats, doxxing, facilitating serious crime, or sexual content involving minors — can skip straight to removal and, where required, be reported to authorities.

What moderators may and may not do

• Moderators enforce these published rules only. They can’t invent new rules on the spot to justify an action.
• They may not mute, suspend, or ban you simply for disagreeing, holding an unpopular view, or asking difficult questions.
• They may not act on personal grudges or conflicts of interest — if a moderator is personally involved in a dispute, another staff member handles it.
• Suspensions and bans are logged and subject to peer review by other staff.

Appealing a decision

If you think an action was a mistake, you can appeal — and it will be looked at by someone other than the moderator who made the call.

• Email gnosis@sanctum-chamber.net (or use the Contact page).
• Include your username, the room or page, roughly when it happened, and why you think it was wrong.
• A different staff member reviews the logged decision. We aim to respond within a few days, and the outcome is recorded.

Changes & contact

We may update these rules; the “Last updated” date at the top of this page always reflects the most recent change. Questions? Reach us at gnosis@sanctum-chamber.net.