Community rules

Vendor neutrality is the product. These rules are enforced by software where possible and by practitioner moderators everywhere else. Moderation actions are logged and summarised in a monthly transparency post.

1. Disclose every affiliation

Declare on your profile if you work for a security vendor, a reseller or distributor, consult for vendors or on vendor selection, or invest in security vendors. Work emails at a listed vendor's domain are badged automatically. Undisclosed affiliation discovered later removes all of your reviews and ratings, and usually the account.

2. Vendor employees are welcome, and badged

You may answer factual questions about your product and correct errors. Your badge shows on everything you write. You may not rate or review any vendor, your own or a competitor's, and you may not open or join war rooms.

3. No pitches

No marketing copy, discount codes, "DM me for a demo", or links to gated content. Pricing transparency threads discuss what members paid and for what. List prices and quotes from vendors are not the point.

4. Reviews need context

Every structured review states organisation size, industry, deployment year, and what the product replaced. One review per vendor per member. Reviews from accounts under seven days old, from members posting more than three reviews a week, or arriving in clusters for one vendor go to the moderation queue before publication.

5. Redact

Remove customer names, internal hostnames, IP addresses, and anything under NDA. "Is this alert real?" threads should include the tool, the indicator type, the asset type, and what you have already ruled out.

6. War rooms are private and expire

Rooms are invite-only, close after 90 days, and are never indexed. Messages are deleted 30 days after closure. What is said in a room stays in the room.

7. Right of reply

A vendor may claim its directory page by verifying a work email at that vendor's domain. An approved representative may post one official, badged reply per review. The reply sits beside the review; it never edits, hides, or replaces it, and it does not change any score. Reviews are removed only for factual falsehood or rule violations, checked by two moderators, never for being unflattering. Representatives still cannot rate or review any vendor.

8. Be useful

Specific beats clever. Say what you tried, what happened, and what you would do differently. Disagreement is fine; contempt is not.