Community Guidelines & Forum Rules

Hifiverse.io — Last updated: 7 May 2026 · Version 1.0

Quick summary

Hifiverse is a community of audiophiles, dealers, manufacturers, journalists and curious newcomers. Treat people the way you'd want to be treated.
Stay on topic, be respectful, be honest, declare your conflicts. Don't post hate, don't harass, don't spam, don't manipulate.
We use a four-step strike system: warning → time-out → suspension → termination. Severe violations skip steps.
Every moderation decision comes with a written explanation (a Statement of Reasons) and an appeal route.
We do not moderate based on a user's opinions about gear, listening preferences or audiophile philosophies. We moderate based on conduct.
Dealers and manufacturers are welcome but must follow the rules in section 8 (no review brigading, no covert promotion, no posing as ordinary users).

1. About these Guidelines

These Community Guidelines & Forum Rules ("Guidelines") govern user conduct in Hifiverse community spaces:

the Forum (formerly hififorum.org, now part of hifiverse.io/community)
comments on editorial articles
public system pages with comment-enabled sections
reviews and ratings on Marketplace listings, dealer storefronts and Authentication outcomes
direct messages between users when routed through the Platform
profile fields including bio, signature and badges

2. The principles

Be honest. Tell the truth about what you've heard, what you own, what you sell. Don't fake a transaction, a review or an experience.

Stay on topic. The community is for hi-fi audio — reviews, listening impressions, technical questions, system advice, vintage restoration, room acoustics, music recommendations, related industry news.

Be respectful. Disagreement is the lifeblood of audiophile discussion. Disrespect is not. You can think someone's listening preferences are wrong without saying they're stupid.

Declare conflicts. If you're posting about a brand you work for, distribute, retail, or have a financial interest in, say so.

Help newcomers. Patient explanations build the community; gatekeeping erodes it.

Respect the moderators. They make mistakes; the appeals process exists for that. Arguing with a moderator inside a thread is not the appeals process.

3. What is welcome

First-hand listening impressions; technical analysis of measurements, schematics, restoration projects, modifications; conflicting opinions when expressed as opinion rather than fact; long deep threads about specific products; help requests at every level; vintage restoration logs; system-page sharing and feedback; dealer perspectives offered transparently; manufacturer perspectives under the same transparency rule; editorial debate about Hifiverse and other publications; multilingual posts (English, Bulgarian, German, French, Italian, Spanish, Dutch, Russian).

4. What is not welcome

4.1 Hate speech and discrimination. Posts targeting people on the basis of race, ethnicity, national origin, religion, caste, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, disability, age, or serious illness.

4.2 Harassment. Sustained unwanted attention, insults, threats, doxing, repeated direct messages after the recipient has asked you to stop, posting personal photographs of another user without consent, encouraging others to harass an individual.

4.3 Threats and incitement. Threats of violence against any person, threats to "expose" personal information, incitement of others to physical action.

4.4 Sexual content directed at minors. Zero tolerance. Reports go immediately to law-enforcement authorities.

4.5 Spam. Commercial postings unrelated to natural community discussion. Repetitive posting of the same content. Cross-posting the same item across multiple unrelated threads. Self-promotion that swamps actual contribution.

4.6 Off-topic commercial posts. Inventory updates posted into unrelated threads; affiliate links in forum replies.

4.7 Covert promotion and astroturfing. Posting under a personal account about a product you sell, distribute, manufacture, or are paid to promote, without disclosing the relationship. Coordinating with colleagues to flood a thread with positive posts.

4.8 Review and rating manipulation. Writing reviews of items you didn't buy. Trading reviews ("five-star me, I'll five-star you"). Paying for reviews. Threatening or pressuring a buyer to remove a negative review.

4.9 Spam/manipulation of the Price Index. Posting fake "sold" listings to skew Price Index values.

4.10 Plagiarism. Posting another person's work as your own. Quoting at length without attribution and link.

4.11 Misrepresentation of qualifications. Claiming professional certifications you don't have, claiming to be a manufacturer's authorised technician when you're not.

4.12 Doxing. Publishing or threatening to publish another person's home address, place of work, identity papers, telephone number or other private contact data they have not made public.

4.13 Misinformation that creates physical or financial risk. False instructions for working with mains-powered equipment. False health claims for audio products. False investment claims about audio gear.

4.14 Bypassing safety on electrical equipment. Discussions of removing earth-ground connections, defeating tube-amplifier safety interlocks, or jury-rigging mains supplies in a way that creates risk to other people.

4.15 Intellectual property infringement. Posting full editorial articles from other publications without permission. Sharing manufacturer manuals, schematics or firmware without permission.

4.16 Coordinated abuse. Brigading, dog-piling, mass-flagging, mass-downvoting, mass-reporting an individual.

5. The four-step strike system

Step	Action	Typical trigger	Duration
1	Warning	First minor violation, or content removal where the rule was not obvious	Decision final; violation recorded
2	Time-out	Repeat of a minor violation after warning, or first major violation	Posting paused for 7 days
3	Suspension	Repeat of a major violation, or sustained pattern of misuse	Account suspended for 30 days; paid features hidden
4	Termination	Continued violations after suspension, or single severe violation	Permanent account closure, prohibition on re-registration

Severe violations that may go directly to step 4: child sexual abuse material; credible threats of physical violence; doxing with intent to enable harassment; coordinated large-scale fraud; sustained coordinated harassment campaigns; sanctions evasion; promotion of terrorist organisations.

Strike expiry. Warnings expire after 12 months without a further violation. Time-outs expire after 24 months. The escalation ladder resets after 24 strike-free months.

6. Statements of Reasons and your right to appeal

When we take a moderation step, we send a written Statement of Reasons explaining: the decision; the territorial and temporal scope; the rule applied; whether automated tools were involved; your right to appeal.

You can appeal at any time within 6 months of the decision by clicking the link in the Statement of Reasons or emailing info@hifiverse.io (subject: "Moderation Appeal — case ID"). We acknowledge within 3 working days and decide within 30 days. The reviewer is a different person from the one who made the original decision.

7. How moderation works

Who moderates. Hifiverse staff moderators handle the bulk of moderation. Community moderators in specific subforums may remove off-topic posts, rename threads and pin announcements, but cannot suspend or terminate accounts.

Visibility actions (moving, locking, hiding a post, adding a moderator note) are housekeeping and do not automatically count as strikes.

Human review. Suspensions (step 3) and terminations (step 4) always involve human review before taking effect, except where the law requires immediate removal.

8. Special rules for dealers, manufacturers and journalists

8.1 Identification. Use a profile that identifies your role. A "Dealer", "Manufacturer" or "Industry" badge is available on request.

8.2 Disclosure of relationships. When you post about a brand you sell, distribute, manufacture, work for, or have a financial interest in, declare it in the post. "Industry disclosure: I distribute X in the EU." at the head of the post satisfies this.

8.3 No covert promotion. Posting under a personal account about your own products without declaring the role is astroturfing. Repeated astroturfing is grounds for permanent termination.

8.4 No review brigading. Coordinating colleagues or employees to post positive reviews of your products or negative reviews of competitors is brigading and triggers section 4.16.

8.5 No editorial impersonation. Don't pose as an independent reviewer or journalist when you are commercially aligned.

8.6 Editorial response. Manufacturers and dealers are entitled to respond to editorial coverage. The constructive route is the corrections process at info@hifiverse.io and the letters-to-the-editor route at info@hifiverse.io. Personal abuse of Hifiverse reviewers in community spaces is not a constructive response.

8.7 Journalists from other publications. You're welcome here. If you're posting about a piece you wrote, link to it. If you're researching a story, identify the publication and intended angle.

9. Reviews and ratings

Reviews must reflect first-hand experience; must not be written in retaliation for a price you didn't like; must not be part of a reciprocal-review pact; and must not be pressured into removal. Editors can update their reviews; the edit history is recorded. We may remove reviews that are demonstrably false or that violate these Guidelines.

10. Privacy, doxing and personal data

The community is public by default. Don't post other people's personal information without their consent. Direct messages are stored and may be accessed for moderation, fraud investigation or legal compliance per the Privacy Policy.

11. Children and minors

The Service is not for children under 16. If you suspect a minor has registered, contact info@hifiverse.io. Posting content directed at, sexualising, or soliciting minors is the most severe violation in this policy.

12. Multilingual community

We support English, Bulgarian, German, French, Italian, Spanish, Dutch and Russian. Other languages are welcome. Where moderation requires a language we don't staff natively, we use translation tools and consult an external native speaker before taking account-level action.

Email: info@hifiverse.io (subject: "Community", "Moderation Appeal — case ID", "Report — Abuse", "Safety", "Privacy", "Editor", "Corrections")
Postal: Timelapse Games EOOD, Bulgaria