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Community Guidelines

The Upwork Community is a place for interesting, thoughtful, and helpful conversation. With active participation, the Community can be a great way to make friends, share information, and gain a more engaging experience on Upwork. 

 

Every great Community needs a few guidelines and, as the Community Team, it’s our responsibility to ensure we’re fostering the best possible Community for all members. 

 

Please familiarize yourself with the complete set of guidelines below. If you come across anything in the Community that appears to violate these guidelines, use the “Notify Moderator” option to let our team know about it.

 

Community Guidelines:

 By using Upwork’s Community you acknowledge that:

 

  • Your posts may be permanent and public (unless they are deleted by you or Upwork, including removal for violation of our policies).
  • Your posts should be helpful, constructive, and encouraging when voicing dissent or criticism.
  • Moderators may take certain actions to keep Community organized and helpful for everyone. Such actions are not up for public discussion.
  • Upwork reserves the right to remove any inappropriate content on Community at any time (read on for more on what we view as inappropriate content).

 

The following are violations that may result in immediate post removal, warning, removal of a user from a group, board, other part of Community, or Community overall, and/or suspension from the Upwork site:

 

  • Posting in a language other than English unless otherwise stated in the group or forum rules.
  • Posting advertisements, soliciting other members to work, hire or participate in interviews, contests, or research studies.
  • Posting contact information, be it your own, another person’s, or company's for any purpose. Posting email content, chat transcripts, or other private communication. This includes any form of doxing.
  • Including names of persons or companies (or other identifying information) in an accusation of misconduct, incompetence, or other wrongdoing. You can always report this information directly to Upwork if you suspect an issue, but posting it in Community is not appropriate.
  • Posting inappropriate content, which includes but is not limited to profanity, vulgarity, sexually explicit information, hate speech, insults, discriminatory,  hostile or other disruptive comments, interpersonal disputes or threats of violence, and material (graphic or text) that is obscene, pornographic, or adult in nature.
  • Being disrespectful towards other members. Accusations and personal attacks based on a user's English, lack of knowledge, experience of Upwork platform and Community, or any other disparaging comments will not be tolerated.
  • Posts that are mostly political speech without any connection to Upwork.
  • Spamming, sending repetitive private messages or abuse notifications, posting repetitive comments, including posting the same post more than once or multiple variations of the same topic.
  • Discussing or reposting deleted posts, warning letters, or discussing sanctioned members or members that are no longer registered on Upwork.
  • Posting content determined to be inappropriate, overly negative (for example, “laundry lists” or “rants” without recommending potential solutions), in poor taste, or otherwise contrary to the purposes of this forum, whether these comments are about Upwork, other members, or something else.
  • Posting material that in any way violates the Upwork Terms of Service or encouraging others to violate any Upwork policies or to leave Upwork.

 

These guidelines are intended to provide guidance on how to operate in our Community but are not exhaustive, and our Community moderators have full discretion to remove any content (which includes downloadable links, third-party apps, and extensions) they reasonably deem to be inappropriate for this forum. This may include messages sent publicly and also messages sent through the private message area of the Community. While we strive to maintain a positive Community atmosphere for all, nothing in these Guidelines obligates Upwork to remove any content at any time.  

 

Please note, violating these Guidelines may have consequences ranging from a warning to banning from Community and the Upwork site.

 

Community Groups 

Upwork is committed to creating spaces for unique and like-minded individuals to connect. In an effort to further foster Community and connection, we have launched Community Groups—hubs that span a myriad of topics bucketed under four main groups: Identity, Industry, Interest and Impact. Upwork supports, and highly encourages, individuals to engage in group discussion and activity in the group(s) that they choose to join. 

 

While group users must adhere to Upwork’s Community Guidelines, please note that in some groups, exceptions may be made depending on the purpose of the group and appropriateness of the user content (e.g. networking to collaborate on work on Upwork, showcasing a profile or portfolio, etc). It is our hope that Group activity will be predominantly user-generated content, that users will connect with new professionals, help each other, and experience an elevated sense of Community and belonging.

 

Your participation in any Upwork Community Group is completely voluntary and subject to Upwork’s discretion. Upwork's Community guidelines and Terms of Service, including our User Agreement, Terms of Use, and Privacy Policy apply to all interactions and communications in all Upwork Community Groups, and your continued access is contingent upon your compliance with these guidelines and terms. 

 

You are also responsible for complying with your agreements with your clients on Upwork, so please do not share any confidential or proprietary information at any time. Please note that we are constantly focused on improving your Upwork experience, so the availability of any specific Upwork Community Group or the Groups feature as a whole is subject to change at any time, but we will try to give you reasonable notice of changes when we can.