Volunteer Code of Conduct

1. Introduction

This Code of Conduct applies to all Guardiobot volunteers across every team and role. By accepting a volunteer credential, you agree to be bound by this Code in all your activities as a Guardiobot volunteer.

Guardiobot exists to protect communities — particularly those with younger members — from exploitation, harassment, and harmful content. The volunteer programme is central to that mission. The conduct of every volunteer directly affects the safety and fairness of the communities we serve and the trust they place in us.

2. Volunteer Teams and Roles

Guardiobot volunteers are organised into four teams:

• Trust & Safety (T&S): Officers, Seniors, Supervisors, and Managers responsible for reviewing and actioning community reports. The primary operational team.
• Human Resources (HR): Officers, Coordinators, Compliance Officers, Supervisors, and Managers responsible for volunteer recruitment, onboarding, wellbeing, and hour tracking.
• Awareness: Relations Officers, Analytics Officers, Content Creators, and Managers responsible for outreach, community engagement, and communications.
• Development: Back-End, Front-End, and Luau Developers responsible for maintaining and improving the platform.

All volunteers are assigned a 6-digit numeric Volunteer ID (e.g. #847291), publicly verifiable at guardiobot.org/verify/{id}. Credentials expire on a defined schedule (3 months for trial, 1 year for standard, 2 years for extended) and must be actively renewed.

3. Core Standards

All volunteers must:

• Act in good faith. Every action you take as a volunteer must be motivated by genuine safety and community protection — never personal interest, bias, or animosity.
• Be consistent and impartial. Apply the same standards to every report regardless of who submitted it, who is reported, or what community they belong to.
• Respect user privacy. Access only the information you need to perform your specific role. Do not share, discuss, or use personal data outside of official Guardiobot operations.
• Be accurate. Do not take action on a report unless you are confident it warrants action. When in doubt, escalate.
• Maintain professionalism. Represent Guardiobot with integrity in all interactions — with other volunteers, with community members, and in any public context.
• Report concerns. If you observe misconduct by another volunteer, report it to a Manager or through the appropriate channel immediately.

4. Credential and Access Security

• Your volunteer credentials (Volunteer ID and password) are personal and must not be shared with anyone under any circumstances
• You must enable and use two-factor authentication for every login unless you are accessing from a registered known device
• You must clock in before accessing any operational dashboard functions, and clock out when your session ends — sessions auto-close after 8 hours
• Report any suspected compromise of your credentials to a Manager immediately
• Do not access the volunteer dashboard from shared, public, or unsecured devices
• Credential renewal requests must be completed before expiry — lapsed credentials result in immediate loss of access until renewed

5. Report Review Standards

Trust & Safety volunteers reviewing community reports must follow these standards:

• Claim only what you intend to action. Claiming a report commits it to your queue — do not claim reports you cannot review promptly
• Apply the correct severity. Actions must be proportionate to the violation. Refer to the T&S severity guide for your level
• Entry-level volunteers (Level 1): may warn, decline, and escalate. Cannot impose restrictions, suspensions, or removals without escalation
• Senior volunteers (Level 2): may impose restrictions and set the appealable flag on a case
• Supervisors (Level 3): may resolve escalations and unclaim any report
• Managers (Level 4): may take all actions including removals, overriding appeal rights, and issuing suspensions
• Action editing: you may edit the reason on your own actions within 48 hours. Managers may edit any action without time restriction
• Unclaiming: you may unclaim reports you personally claimed. Level 3+ may unclaim any report
• Do not action reports involving parties you have a personal relationship with. Recuse yourself and escalate

6. Content Clearance

Access to NSFW report categories (Content Class 2) requires explicit clearance granted by a Trust & Safety Manager. To receive clearance, you must:

• Confirm that you are 18 years of age or older
• Sign the required legal documentation
• Receive a formal grant from a T&S Manager, recorded in the immutable content clearance log

Content Class 2 clearance may be revoked at any time by a T&S Manager. All grants and revocations are permanently logged and cannot be deleted. Attempting to access NSFW content without clearance, or assisting another volunteer to do so, is a serious breach of this Code and may have legal consequences.

7. Confidentiality

As a volunteer, you will have access to information that is confidential — including report content, user identifiers, enforcement records, and internal operational data. You must:

• Not share or disclose any information accessed through the volunteer dashboard outside of official Guardiobot communications
• Not use information from reports to contact, identify, or take action against any individual outside the dashboard
• Not discuss specific report cases in public or semi-public channels, including personal Discord servers, social media, or streaming platforms
• Treat all user data with the same level of care you would expect for your own personal data

Confidentiality obligations survive the end of your volunteer role. Breaches may result in legal action.

8. Hours and Availability

Minimum monthly hour requirements are set per role and team by a Manager and are configurable through the dashboard. These requirements exist to ensure consistent coverage and are reviewed by HR.

Volunteers who do not meet their minimum hours for a given month without prior notice to HR may be subject to a warning, temporary suspension of credentials, or removal from the programme.

Sessions are capped at 8 hours. A warning is sent at 7 hours. Sessions that exceed 8 hours are automatically closed by the system.

9. Misconduct and Enforcement

Violations of this Code of Conduct may result in:

• A formal warning recorded in the audit log
• Temporary suspension of volunteer credentials
• Permanent revocation of credentials
• Referral to law enforcement, where applicable (e.g. unauthorised access to restricted content, breach of confidentiality involving personal data)

All disciplinary decisions are made by a Manager (Level 4) or the sysadmin. The sysadmin account is the sole account with unrestricted access across all systems; it cannot be demoted, revoked, or overridden by any volunteer action.

Volunteers subject to disciplinary action may raise concerns with HR. Where a conflict of interest exists among Managers, the matter should be escalated to the sysadmin.

10. Contact

For questions about this Code of Conduct, or to report a concern about volunteer conduct: