Community guidelines

MentorBuild works because a student can admit they do not understand something and a mentor can say so plainly, without either of them worrying about how it will be taken. These guidelines exist to protect that.

They apply everywhere on the platform — project workspaces, messages, live sessions, reviews, profiles and support tickets — and to everyone, whatever their role.

1. What we expect

• Be straight with people. Say what you mean, and say it early. A problem raised in week one is a scheduling adjustment; the same problem raised in week three is a dispute.
• Assume competence. Someone who does not know a thing yet is not someone who cannot learn it.
• Criticise the work, not the person. "This query will not scale" is useful. "You clearly have not done this before" is not.
• Keep it in the workspace. Conversations that happen on the platform can be reviewed if something goes wrong. Conversations that happen elsewhere cannot.
• Respect people's time. Turn up to sessions, or give notice you cannot.

2. What we do not allow

Harassment and discrimination

• Abuse, threats, intimidation or sustained hostility toward anyone.
• Slurs or demeaning treatment based on caste, religion, region, language, gender, sexual orientation, disability, age, or any other personal characteristic.
• Sexual advances, comments or content directed at another user. Mentoring is a professional relationship.
• Sharing someone's personal information, or publishing private messages, without their consent.

Dishonesty

• Misrepresenting your identity, employer, qualifications or experience.
• Passing off someone else's work as your own, or asking a mentor to produce work for you to submit.
• Fake reviews, or offering anything in exchange for a review.
• Taking a conversation off-platform to avoid commission or escrow.

Harmful content and conduct

• Malware, credential harvesting, or asking a mentor to help build something designed to cause harm.
• Content that is unlawful, infringing, obscene, or that you do not have the right to share.
• Attempting to access another user's account, data or project.
• Spam, recruitment pitches or unsolicited promotion of other services.

3. Disagreements

Disagreeing about scope, quality or timeline is normal, and it is not a guidelines problem. Say clearly what you expected and what you got. If you still cannot resolve it, raise a dispute — that is what the process is for, and using it is never held against you.

What is a guidelines problem is how you disagree. Pressure, threats about reviews, and personal attacks are not negotiating tactics.

4. Reporting a problem

• Use the report option in the project workspace, or on the profile or message concerned.
• For anything urgent — a threat, a safety concern, or suspected fraud — email contactmentorbuild@gmail.com and mark it urgent.
• Tell us what happened and roughly when. We can see the workspace record, so you do not need to reconstruct everything.
• We do not tell the person you reported who reported them. Retaliating against someone for making a report is itself a breach of these guidelines.

5. What happens next

We review reports against these guidelines and the evidence in the workspace, and we respond in proportion to what happened and whether it has happened before.

• A warning, with an explanation of what needs to change.
• Removal of the content concerned.
• Reassignment of the project to a different mentor, at no cost to the student.
• Temporary suspension of the account.
• Permanent removal, for serious or repeated breaches.

Threats to physical safety, sexual harassment, fraud and attacks on the platform's security lead to immediate removal without a warning, and we report to the authorities where the law requires it.

Money held in escrow when an account is actioned is resolved through the dispute process. It is not forfeited, and it is not kept by us.

6. Appeals

If you think we got a decision wrong, email contactmentorbuild@gmail.com within 30 days. Someone who was not involved in the original decision reviews it and responds within 15 days.