Community Guidelines

Version 2026.07 · Part of the Terms of Service

GroupStudy works because groups are small — 6–8 people who know each other's names and show up for each other. These guidelines exist to protect that. They apply everywhere on the platform: group rooms, direct messages, the community board, video calls, whiteboards, and code rooms.

The spirit of it

• Show up like a study partner. Answer when you can, ask when you're stuck, tell your group when life gets in the way. Nobody expects brilliance; everybody expects honesty.
• Every learner belongs here. Any exam, any field, any level, any country, any accent. "That's a beginner question" is not a sentence that exists on GroupStudy.
• What's shared in the group stays in the group. Screenshots of a groupmate's messages, notes, or camera feed shared outside the group without their consent is a serious violation.

Never allowed

• Harassment or hate — attacks on people for who they are, slurs, stalking, sexual harassment, threats. Zero tolerance; this is the fastest route to a permanent ban.
• Real exam content ("braindumps") — sharing actual questions from a live exam violates the certification body's rules, jeopardizes every member's certification, and is banned outright. Practice with the AI mock exams instead — that's what they're for.
• Pirated course content — watch-together syncs everyone's own copy; screen-sharing paid content to people who haven't bought it, or sharing downloads, is not permitted.
• Cheating services — offering or seeking exam impersonation, proxy testing, or "guaranteed pass" schemes.
• Spam & unwanted promotion — the community board is for finding study peers, not for advertising. Mentioning something you built is fine when it's relevant and disclosed; drive-by link-dropping and DM promotion are not.
• Sexual content, gore, or violent extremism — this is a study platform; content has no reason to go there.
• Doxxing — publishing anyone's private information, including recordings or personal details learned in a group.

Group-level etiquette

• Owners and moderators set their group's working style (session cadence, language, pace) and may remove members who don't fit — removal from one group is not a platform sanction, and matching can place you in another.
• Don't ghost a full group. Seats are capped at 8; if you're leaving, leave — someone on the waitlist wants your spot.
• Recording a session requires the host to enable it, and the UI shows everyone recording is on. Don't record by other means.

How enforcement works

Every message, post, and profile has a report action, and you can block any member. Reports go to a moderation queue reviewed by our staff; every staff action is internally audit-logged. Enforcement is proportionate:

1. Warning + content removal for first, minor violations.
2. Feature restriction or suspension for repeated or significant violations.
3. Permanent ban for severe violations (harassment, hate, braindumps, cheating services, doxxing) — first offence included.

If you believe we got a decision wrong, appeal to [FILL: support/appeals email] within 30 days; a different staff member reviews appeals. [LAWYER REVIEW: appeal wording — DSA-style statement-of-reasons obligations if EU users are targeted.]

Report something

Use the in-product report button (fastest), or email [FILL: support email] for anything that needs a human urgently — especially safety issues.