Safety
When something goes wrong
How reporting works here, what we keep, and what we cannot do.
Report anything a member writes
The Report control is beside everything a member writes: a note, a line at a table, a profile, a paper, a record. It opens one short form, the same everywhere, and you choose what is wrong from a fixed list.
Reporting is never required and earns nothing. If you have no account, the report page leads to the forms you can use.
What happens to a report
Reports are weighed, not counted. A group cannot report someone off the site. A report by itself never suspends or removes anyone.
Staff read reports and decide what to do. Software may hide one item while it waits for a person, under caps, and what it hides goes back by itself if nobody has looked in seven days. Only a person warns, mutes, suspends or removes.
You can follow your own reports under Reports you have made. They say where each stands. We usually cannot tell you what was done about another member's account.
What is sent with it, and how long we keep it
- The item itself and what surrounds it. For a note, that is up to ten notes either side.
- When each was written, and how old both accounts are.
- Earlier reports about the same thing, and what our automated checks made of it.
- A scrambled form of your network address, with your browser type. Nothing else from your device.
| What | Kept for |
|---|---|
| A report, and the fixed copy of what was reported | 12 months after the case closes with no action; 24 months after a notice, a mute, a suspension or a withdrawn item; 36 months after an account is removed |
| The scrambled network address and browser type sent with a report | 90 days |
| The scrambled network address sent with a public form | 30 days |
| An intimate-image removal request | 5 years after its ticket closes |
| A copyright notice, or an answer to one | 3 years after its ticket closes |
| A dispute, or a report from someone with no account | 24 months after its ticket closes |
| A decision about you, and a second look | With the case it belongs to. A strike counts for 12 months |
| The record of an age re-check | 36 months. No date of birth is kept |
Anything under a legal hold is kept until the hold is released.
Who can see what
The person you report is not told who reported them. In a conversation between two people they may guess; tick the box on the form if that would put you at risk.
Staff can see your name, and a court could order us to disclose it. Nobody else is shown who reported, and no member can see a report or another member's standing.
Block and mute
Blocking someone stops them seeing you in the study rooms, nodding to you or writing to you. They are not told. Muting is quieter: they can still reach you and you are not notified.
Both are on every member's card, and the lists of everyone you have blocked or muted are under People in your account.
If we act on something you wrote
You are told which item, which guideline and how to ask for a second look. One person runs Tillyard at present, so the second look is by the same editor who made the decision.
Every notice you have received is under Decisions about you. Nothing about a decision is shown to other members.
If someone may be in danger
- Right now
- Call 911.
- Any hour, in the United States
- Call or text 988, the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline.
- By text
- Text HOME to 741741 to reach the Crisis Text Line.
Tillyard is not an emergency service and reports are not read around the clock. The crisis page has these numbers by themselves.
Taking something down
Three forms need no account and cost nothing.
- An intimate image of meReal or fake, shared without my agreement.
- My copyrighted workThe law asks for six things, so this form is longer.
- Dispute or correct somethingA page about you, a confirmation you did not give, credit, a payment.
If a form will not work for you, the take-down page has the email and postal routes. A request counts from when it arrives.
What to expect and what we cannot do
- We cannot promise to act on a report or to act within a set time. The one exception is the 48 hours the law sets for intimate images.
- Our checks for copied text and signs of AI-written text are not perfect, and a person decides what to do about a flag.
- A private message reaches staff only when someone in the conversation reports it or an automated check flags it. Staff do not browse messages.
- We do not report members to their colleges as a matter of routine. Serious misconduct such as threats, stalking, fraud or impersonation may lead to permanent removal and, where appropriate and lawful, referral to law enforcement or your institution.
The numbers
Each quarter we print how many reports arrived, in which categories, and what was decided. The numbers describe what happened. They are not targets.