Community Guidelines

Site Community Guidelines

The Scholarly mission is to provide high school students (“Students”) an alternative to expensive college tutoring and an opportunity to connect with successful college applicants (“Scholars”) at top universities.

We want Scholarly to be welcoming, informative, and memorable for everyone involved. We’ve developed these Community Guidelines to help ensure that Scholarly is a positive and safe experience for all the scholars, students, and parents who use it.

Any of the behaviors listed below may result in Scholarly taking action on your account or content, up to and including a permanent suspension of your account. Encouraging or assisting the violation of any of these Guidelines is also a violation of them.

We rely on both human review and automated screening to find potential violations of these Guidelines and our Terms of Service. Humans typically decide whether a violation has actually occurred and whether to take action on an account or content, although in extreme circumstances such as widespread fraud or security vulnerability we may take action based solely on automated screening.

If you have a concern about something on Scholarly, including a violation of these Guidelines or our Terms of Service, please let us know by reporting the issue using the tools we provide in our product or contacting xander@startscholarly.com.

Inauthentic Accounts, Multiple or Transferred Accounts

Be real. Don’t provide a false identity or submit any incorrect or misleading information about yourself, including your affiliations with other individuals, entities, or online accounts, when you sign up for a Scholarly account. Use your own name and photographs (or the names or images of characters you own or have the rights to use). Don’t make deep-fake accounts.

No burners. If you’re mid-suspension or have been banned from Scholarly, don’t try to evade our enforcement processes. We also ask that you not create multiple accounts unless you have a legitimate reason for doing so (for example, a talent who portrays different characters).

No transfers. Your Scholarly account may not be transferred or sold. If you have questions about your talent account, please contact xander@startscholarly.com.

Misuse of Scholarly

You alone are responsible for your use of Scholarly, including your account and any content you create. We ask that you use Scholarly only for its intended use and as permitted in our Terms of Service.

Scholarly is about getting inspiration and making a connection, and each Scholar should strive to answer a question to the best of their ability. If you’re a Scholar, think deeply about your responses and take care to elaborate on your answers.

Don’t use a single message to ask many questions, the Scholar is not likely to respond.

Students and Scholars may not use Scholarly to help complete a transaction off of Scholarly or through another platform. For everyone’s safety, we require that you keep it on Scholarly.

Scholars should not artificially inflate their presence or reputation on Scholarly (by posting false reviews or engaging in shilling) or interfere with another’s business.

Don’t misuse Scholarly by sending unauthorized advertising or commercial messages, including spam or any other unsolicited communication. It’s annoying.

Don’t use Scholarly to deceive or mislead others. This includes making requests that you know (or should know) would embarrass scholars or compromise their integrity, or spreading lies or misinformation.

When you submit or update a rating/review on Scholarly, it must be a true, honest, and accurate evaluation of the Scholar’s answer(s) to which it corresponds. Submitting a rating/review for reasons unrelated to the answer(s), rating/review “bombing,” and inaccurately portraying the contents of a video or its booking request in a review are all prohibited.

Illegal Conduct

Scholarly’s Terms of Service require that you use our Site only in compliance with all applicable laws.

You may not promote, encourage, or engage in any illegal conduct on, using, or directed at Scholarly. Don’t submit requests or create content that violates any law, regulation, court order, or other legal process, including attempts at phishing, money laundering, theft, or fraud. We also prohibit the depiction, promotion, or trade of illegal drugs or other controlled or illegal substances.

Hate and Disparaging Speech

We are proud to celebrate the diversity of the Scholars and Students on Scholarly. We do not tolerate hateful or disparaging speech, slurs, or derogatory terms. The same goes for content that attacks, demeans, dehumanizes, discriminates, or threatens violence, including on the basis of any legally protected characteristic, such as race, sex, ethnicity, national origin, religion, sexual orientation, gender identity, age, disability, or veteran status. We also prohibit content that supports organizations or people who advocate or do those things.

Violence

Inciting, encouraging, promoting, threatening, or depicting violence, cruelty, terrorism, or harm, including towards one’s self or towards animals, is prohibited on Scholarly. Don’t post or solicit content that glorifies, advocates, or promotes these things, including in the pursuit of political, religious, ethnic, racial, or ideological objectives.

Nudity, Sexually Explicit Content, Content Harmful to Minors

Scholarly is not the place to send or solicit pornographic, indecent, obscene, or sexually explicit content. Nudity on Scholarly is prohibited, including genitalia, fully-nude buttocks, and female nipples. Sexual stimulation or masturbation, with or without nudity, is also prohibited. This prohibition applies to real, mimicked, or implied activity, and includes digitally-created or manipulated content.

Sexualizing minors is strictly prohibited. Do not distribute, post, send, or solicit any sexually explicit content of minors, or any content that displays or promotes the physical abuse, neglect, endangerment, or psychological disparagement or harm of children.

Cruelty, Harassment, Bullying

Play nice. Don’t post or solicit content that is (or incites or encourages) illegal, abusive, harassing, hateful, racist, derogatory, or harmful to someone’s reputation.

Scholars have worked very hard to get into prestigious positions, but they have feelings, too. Don’t post, send, or solicit content that wishes death, disability, or other harm on them or anyone else. Don’t insult someone because of their personal attributes (like appearance, personality traits, or intellect). Don’t ridicule or taunt victims of tragic or violent events.

If you’re blocked by someone or they decline contact with you for any reason, just move on. Don’t try to contact them elsewhere. We (like most people) consider that to be harassment.

Do not harass Scholarly employees. We have no tolerance for that.

Intellectual Property and Related Violations

Don’t use what doesn’t belong to you. Only submit that you own in its entirety (or have the rights to submit in accordance with our Terms of Service). This goes for music, artwork, written or spoken words, websites, screen shares, and anything else that is part of your content. You agree not to violate, infringe, or misappropriate any intellectual property, privacy, publicity, moral rights, or other legal rights when you use Scholarly. Our copyright policy is described in more detail in our Terms of Service.

Nobody likes a copycat. Don’t access Scholarly to try to plagiarize or steal essay or application content. We encourage you to take inspiration, but Scholarly will cooperate with Universities on preventing plagiarism of Scholars’ content.

Don’t access Scholarly to try and build a similar or competitive service, and don’t attempt to decipher, decompile, disassemble, or reverse engineer any of the software or other underlying computer code used by us to provide our service. Don’t scrape or crawl any part of our services, or engage in spidering or harvesting.

Invasions of Privacy

Mind your own business. We prohibit content that violates the confidentiality or privacy of others, including doxxing and disclosing others’ personal information without their permission. See our Privacy Policy for more information on how we collect, use, and share personal information.

Undermining the Security or Reliability of Our Site

Do not undermine the security or reliability of our services. Any hacking attempts, efforts to bypass our measures to restrict user access, or the use of automated scripts to collect information from Scholarly or our users is prohibited.

Similarly, do not distribute files or content that contain viruses, Trojan horses, worms, or other materials that are malicious. Do not attempt to circumvent any technological measure, whether implemented by us, any of our providers, or any other person, intended or designed to protect Scholarly, our users, or anyone else.

How We Enforce These Guidelines

When enforcing these Guidelines, we may consider multiple factors including the violation itself, the severity of the conduct, and the number of violations by the same user. We generally do not monitor off-platform behavior, but we may take it into account under some circumstances, for example if it provides context to behavior on Scholarly or references Scholarly while engaging in behavior that would violate these Guidelines. We may also consider off-platform behavior that is extreme, including membership in hate groups or terrorist organizations, sexual assault, or child abuse.

You agree to cooperate with investigations conducted by Scholarly and promptly provide any information requested by Scholarly. In some cases, we may determine that it is necessary to temporarily suspend a Scholarly account while we are reviewing a possible violation and evaluating appropriate enforcement. Depending on the severity of the violation, Scholarly may enforce these Guidelines by:

issuing a warning; removing content from Scholarly; temporarily suspending account access for a specified period of time; permanently suspending account access; or other action in Scholarly’s sole discretion.

In limited circumstances, we may allow exceptions to our standard content removal policies -- for example, when we determine the material serves the public interest, such as content that is clearly satirical, scientific, or educational in nature.

If you believe that an enforcement decision against you was incorrect, you may request an appeal in writing to xander@startscholarly.com. You must use the email address associated with the Scholarly account connected to our decision and include detailed reasons why you believe the decision was incorrect. As with all other enforcement decisions, the granting of an appeal is at Scholarly’s sole discretion, and these decisions are final and binding.

If we suspend your Scholarly account for a specific period of time, you may request reinstatement after the suspension ends. Any request for reinstatement must be in writing and sent to xander@startscholarly.com from the email address associated with the suspended Scholarly account. The request for reinstatement must include: (a) a description of why you would like to rejoin Scholarly; (b) confirmation that you have read and will abide by Scholarly’s Terms of Service, including these Community Guidelines; and (c) any other confirmations, acknowledgements or agreements that we request. A qualifying request does not guarantee reinstatement.

In the spirit of keeping Scholalry safe and welcoming for all, you agree to cooperate with investigations conducted by Scholarly and promptly provide any information requested by Scholarly.

If your Scholarly Student account is suspended or content that you received is removed from our Site for violating these Guidelines or our Terms, Scholarly may in its sole discretion issue a refund for impacted purchases. Absent exceptional circumstances, we will not refund the cost of messages that are misused or content that is sent or booked in contravention of these Guidelines or our Terms (for example, requests for hateful content or nudity) and will not refund funds held by third parties such as fees paid to Apple in connection with an in-app purchase. If your Scholar account is suspended or Scholar Content that you created is removed from our Site for violating these Guidelines or our Terms, Scholarly may in its sole discretion withhold the corresponding funds from your current or future Scholarly earnings.

These content standards apply to any and all content, phrases, entries, or materials (collectively, “User Contributions”) and use of Interactive Services. User Contributions must in their entirety comply with all applicable federal, state, local and international laws and regulations. Without limiting the foregoing, User Contributions must not:

Contain any material which is defamatory, obscene, indecent, abusive, offensive, harassing, violent, hateful, inflammatory or otherwise objectionable.

Promote sexually explicit or pornographic material, violence, or discrimination based on race, sex, religion, nationality, disability, sexual orientation or age.

Infringe any patent, trademark, trade secret, copyright or other intellectual property or other rights of any other person.

Violate the legal rights (including the rights of publicity and privacy) of others or contain any material that could give rise to any civil or criminal liability under applicable laws or regulations or that otherwise may be in conflict with these Terms of Service and our Privacy Policy.

Be likely to deceive any person.

Promote any illegal activity, or advocate, promote or assist any unlawful act.

Cause annoyance, inconvenience or needless anxiety or be likely to upset, embarrass, alarm or annoy any other person.

Impersonate any person, or misrepresent your identity or affiliation with any person or organization.

Involve commercial activities or sales, such as contests, sweepstakes and other sales promotions, bartering or advertising.

Give the impression that they emanate from or are endorsed by us or any other person or entity, if this is not the case.