Argue hard. Leave the person standing.
Four rules, four things that are never allowed, and exactly what happens when one of them is broken. Written to be read in five minutes rather than to be quoted in a dispute.
What is expected in every room
Each one exists because of a specific way a discussion dies. They are not general good manners; they are the conditions the method needs to work at all.
Argue with the position, never the person
The whole method rests on being able to attack an argument hard while leaving the person holding it intact. Disagreement is the point of a discussion room. Contempt ends it, because the moment someone expects to be mocked they stop offering the half-formed idea that was worth hearing.
"That conclusion ignores the second data set" is the exercise working. "Only an idiot would say that" is the same point with the exercise removed.
Submit your own work
Every submission is marked by a person against a rubric, and a certificate is only worth carrying because of that. Passing off someone else's work — a classmate's, a model's, a website's — as your own removes the only thing the credential was measuring.
Using a model to research, check or challenge your reasoning is fine and we would rather you did. Submitting its output as your reasoning is not, and it is usually obvious to a facilitator who has read your last four submissions.
Leave room for the quiet half
A discussion where three people speak for forty minutes has not happened. Facilitators will actively bring in people who have not spoken, and part of the standard here is that you make that easy rather than harder.
Someone changes their position mid-discussion and says why. That is the highest-scoring thing that can happen in a room, not a loss.
What is said in a cohort stays in the cohort
People reason out loud in these rooms, which means being wrong in front of others. That only works if the room is not being recorded, screenshotted and reposted somewhere else.
A single reposted clip is enough to make an entire cohort careful, and a careful room stops producing the half-formed ideas that discussions exist to test.
Four things with no warning step
Everything else starts with a conversation. These start with the account being suspended while it is investigated.
Harassment
Targeting someone repeatedly, in rooms or in messages, after being asked to stop. Includes following someone across the platform.
Hate & threats
Slurs, dehumanising language, or any threat of harm. There is no debate-context exemption for this and there will not be one.
Anything involving a minor
Sexual content involving anyone under 18, or an adult seeking private contact with a school-cohort student. Reported to authorities, not just removed.
Scams & spam
Selling, phishing, fake certificates, promising jobs for money, or bulk-messaging learners. Includes impersonating staff or a facilitator.
Proportionate, written down, and appealable
You are always told which rule and which incident. A decision you cannot see the reason for is not one you can learn from.
A word from the facilitator
Most of what goes wrong in a room is someone getting heated, and most of it ends here — in the room, at the time, with no record kept.
A formal warning
For a repeat, or for something a facilitator escalates. It is written down, you are told exactly which rule and which incident, and it stays on file for a year.
Removal from a room or cohort
Losing discussion access for a period, or being taken out of a cohort with the term's submissions preserved. Your institution is told when you are in its cohort.
Account suspension
For sustained breaches or for anything in the never-permitted list. Certificates already verified stay verifiable; the account does not reopen.
Appeal
Every decision above can be appealed once, to someone who was not involved in making it. Appeals are answered within ten working days.
What people ask about the rules
Something happened in a room?
Tell us.
Every discussion, message and profile has a report control, and every report reaches a moderator. The Safety page explains what happens next.
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