Community Guidelines

The Commons is a private community for Ricketts University students, instructors, mentors and staff. It is an adult-focused creative education community: members must be 18 or older. Accounts for younger students aren’t available until a minor-safety system has been designed and legally reviewed.

Only signed-in members can see the community. Nothing posted here is public unless a feature clearly says so.

• No harassment, bullying, threats, intimidation, doxxing or stalking.
• No hate speech or discrimination based on race, ethnicity, national origin, religion, sex, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, disability, age or any other protected characteristic.
• No sexual content directed at other members, and no sexual content involving minors, ever.
• Respect boundaries. If someone asks you to stop contacting them, stop. Blocking is always available.

When you share work you choose which kinds of feedback you want: general impressions, composition, typography, presentation, portfolio relevance, technical quality, commercial readiness, or constructive suggestions. Stay within the modes the creator asked for.

• Be specific: “The hands feel stiffer than the face” helps; “this is bad” doesn’t.
• Say what’s working, what isn’t yet, and one next step.
• Personal attacks, mockery, and comments about someone’s identity are never critique.
• Only critique work that has been offered for critique.

• Post work you made or have permission to show. Credit collaborators, references and tutorials.
• Respect client confidentiality and NDAs. Unreleased client or production work doesn’t belong here without permission.
• Say when you used generative AI tools, and how.
• Never download, repost or reuse another member’s work outside the campus without their permission.

• Upload images, PDFs and the other file types the uploader allows. Don’t try to get around the file limits.
• Describe images with alt text so everyone can take part.
• No malware, phishing links, or files that aren’t what they claim to be.

You control whether other students can find your profile, who can message you, and who can send you connection requests. Your email address and academic records are never shown to other students.

Messages are private to the members of each conversation and protected by access controls. They are not end-to-end encrypted: authorised moderators can review a message after it has been reported. Don’t share passwords, financial details or other sensitive information in messages.

Don’t screenshot or share other members’ posts, messages or personal details outside the campus.

• Block someone to stop them messaging you, connecting with you, or seeing you in member discovery. They aren’t told.
• Mute a person or conversation to stop notifications and hide their posts from your feeds, without blocking them.
• Report any post, reply, message or profile that breaks these guidelines. Reports are seen only by moderators.

Share opportunities and your own news in the spaces meant for them. No spam, unsolicited sales messages, pyramid schemes, or mass connection requests.

Moderators review reports and may remove content, issue a warning, suspend an account for a set period, or ban an account. Every moderation action is recorded with its reason. Serious matters, including threats of harm, may be referred to the authorities.

You’ll see a notice explaining any action taken on your account or content, and you can appeal it once. A different moderator reviews appeals where possible.

Ricketts University is an independent online arts education project. It is not an accredited institution, does not grant degrees or diplomas, and is not recognized by any government. Courses lead to participation and course-completion records only.