A good community guidelines template has eight parts: purpose, who it covers, expected behaviour, unacceptable behaviour, how to report, consequences, appeals and how the rules change. Keep it to one or two screens, write it in plain words, and show it to people before they can post. Below is a template you can copy, notes on what real communities do, and how to enforce the result on a WordPress community.
This is general guidance, not legal advice. Rules about harassment, privacy, minors and data differ by country and state, so check your local rules, and have a lawyer read anything you rely on in a dispute. The published examples below were read on their own sites in October 2026.
In this guide
- What community guidelines are, and how they differ from a code of conduct
- What real communities put in theirs
- The copyable template, section by section
- Tone and length
- Filled-in examples for different kinds of community
- How to enforce the rules without burning out
- Where to put the guidelines on your site
- How BuddyNext moderation maps to each rule
- Questions people ask
What are community guidelines, and is a code of conduct the same thing?
Community guidelines are the written rules for how members behave in your community and what happens when they do not. A code of conduct is the same idea with a more formal tone, often used by open source projects and events. For most online communities the two words are interchangeable, and the content is what matters.
Here is the practical split. Guidelines usually cover everyday matters: stay on topic, no spam, no promotion, be kind. A code of conduct leans towards harassment, discrimination and safety, and tends to spell out a reporting process and a ladder of consequences. Many communities publish one document that does both, and that is a fine choice for a small site. If you run a larger or paid community, you may want a short friendly set of guidelines on top and a fuller conduct policy linked underneath.
One more distinction. Guidelines are not your terms of service. Terms are a legal contract between you and each member. Guidelines are a social agreement about behaviour. Keep them separate so you can change the guidelines quickly without touching the legal text.
What do real communities put in their guidelines?
The well-known examples share the same skeleton, and it is the one this post uses. Four of them are drawn on here, each from its own site. None of them is long.
The Contributor Covenant is the code of conduct that thousands of open source projects adopt, and the project says WordPress is among them. Version 2.1 runs in this order: a pledge, standards of behaviour, enforcement responsibilities, scope, enforcement (how to report), and enforcement guidelines. The last part is the one most communities lack. It sets out four graduated steps: a private correction, a warning, a temporary ban and a permanent ban. The reporting contact in the stock text is left as a blank for you to fill in, which is a good reminder that a rule nobody can act on is decoration.
The WordPress community code of conduct has nine sections, including a pledge, expectations, interpretation, scope, enforcement, enforcement guidelines and modifications. It asks people to show empathy and kindness and to accept feedback and take responsibility for mistakes. Its unacceptable list includes insulting or derogatory comments, harassment in public or private, sharing someone’s private information without permission, and retaliating against people who report in good faith. That last item is the one I would copy first. People stop reporting the moment they fear a comeback.
The Mozilla Community Participation Guidelines are built around six principles, and the first is “Be Respectful”. They name categories of unacceptable behaviour, including threats, personal attacks and doxxing, which means publishing someone’s private details. They give a named inbox for reports, say reporters get an acknowledgement, and describe an appeal route after an investigation. They also treat false reports and abuse of the reporting process as a violation in their own right. Few small communities think of that, and it closes a real loophole.
The Discourse community guidelines are the warm, short end of the spectrum. They compare the forum to a shared public space, ask people to improve the discussion, and say to criticise ideas, not people. They tell members not to respond to bad behaviour but to use the flag tool, and they state openly that moderators may remove content or accounts at their discretion. That blunt line saves moderators from endless debate about whether each removal was fair.
I tried to read Reddit’s site-wide rules as well, but the page blocked my fetch, so I am not describing them here. If you want a model for per-community rules layered on a platform-wide set, read them yourself.
What do these have in common? Each states a purpose, says where the rules apply, lists what to do and what not to do, tells people how to report, and names what happens next. The strongest ones add a way to appeal. Your template should have all of that and nothing more.
What does a copyable community guidelines template look like?
Copy the text below and replace everything in square brackets. Delete any line that does not fit your community rather than leaving a rule you will not enforce. A shorter set that you apply every time beats a long one that you apply when you feel like it.
1. Purpose
[Community name] is a place for [who it is for] to [what they do here: learn, swap ideas, get help, share work]. We want it to be [two or three honest adjectives, for example useful, friendly and calm]. These guidelines explain how we keep it that way.
2. Who and what this covers
These guidelines apply to everyone who takes part: members, moderators, staff and guests. They cover [the activity feed, spaces, forums, comments, profiles, direct messages, events, live calls, our social accounts when they represent [community name], and any in-person meetups we run]. They also apply off-site when behaviour toward another member happens because of something in our community.
3. What we expect
Be respectful, including when you disagree. Criticise ideas, not people. Assume good intent first, and ask before you assume the worst. Post in the right space and search before you ask a question that may already be answered. Credit other people’s work. Respect privacy, which means you ask before sharing anything someone told you in confidence. Own your mistakes and say so quickly when you get something wrong. [Add one or two rules that are specific to your community, for example “Say what you tried before asking for help” or “Share results, not only questions”.]
4. What we do not allow
The following are not allowed anywhere in [community name], public or private:
- Harassment, threats, personal attacks, or insults aimed at a person or a group
- Hate speech or demeaning language about race, religion, gender, sexuality, disability, nationality or age
- Sharing another person’s private information, including address, workplace details, photos or private messages, without their clear permission
- Sexual content, or unwelcome sexual attention
- Spam, repeated self-promotion, affiliate links, or off-topic selling [unless it is in the space called [name]]
- Pretending to be someone else, or running several accounts to dodge a decision
- Posting content you do not have the right to share
- Encouraging or helping anyone else to do any of the above
- Retaliating against someone for making a report in good faith
- Making reports you know are false
- [Add any rule needed for your topic, such as medical, financial or legal advice, or the use of AI-generated replies]
5. How to report a problem
If you see something that breaks these guidelines, use the report button on the post, comment or profile, and choose the closest reason. If the issue is sensitive, or involves a moderator, email [address] instead. We will acknowledge your report within [time, for example 2 working days]. We keep reports confidential from the person reported, and we do not tolerate retaliation against anyone who reports in good faith. Please do not answer bad behaviour with more of it. Report it and leave the rest to us.
6. What happens when someone breaks a rule
We judge each case on its facts, and a moderator may remove content or restrict an account at any time. A typical ladder looks like this:
- Note or correction. A private message that explains what went wrong and what to do instead.
- Formal warning. A written warning that stays on record.
- Strike. Recorded against the account, and [number] strikes lead to a suspension.
- Temporary suspension. Posting and messaging are switched off for [number] days.
- Permanent removal. Reserved for serious or repeated violations, or for harassment, threats and doxxing.
We may skip steps if the behaviour is severe. We will always tell you which rule was broken and what the decision is, unless doing so would put someone at risk.
7. Appeals
If you believe a decision was a mistake, email [address] within [number] days and tell us your side. Someone who was not involved in the first decision will read it and reply within [time]. The outcome of the review is final.
8. Changes to these guidelines
We may update these guidelines as the community grows. When we make a significant change, we will post it in [place, for example the announcements space] and email members. The date at the top shows the latest version. Last updated: [date]. Questions about these guidelines go to [address].
How long should guidelines be, and what tone works?
Aim for 300 to 700 words, short enough that a new member reads all of it in two minutes. That is a rule of thumb from my own experience, not a measured figure. The published examples above run longer, but they serve large global projects with many contributors. A community of a few hundred people does not need that.
On tone, write the way you would speak to a guest in your house. Say “we” for the community and “you” for the member. Lead with what you want people to do. Put the prohibitions in a separate list so they are easy to find and easy to point to. Avoid legalese, because members who cannot follow the sentence cannot follow the rule.
Use concrete words. “Be nice” fails because nobody knows where the line is. “Criticise ideas, not people” works because you can check a post against it. When a rule has a grey area, add a one-line example of each side. The Santa Clara Principles, a set of standards for how platforms should handle moderation, make the same point: rules should be clear, easy to find and illustrated with examples.
Resist the urge to list every possible offence. A long list invites rule-lawyering, where a member argues that what they did was not on the list. Keep a catch-all line that gives moderators discretion, as Discourse does, and trust your team to use it fairly.
Which version fits my kind of community?
The template above is the neutral base. Change the emphasis to match what people come to your site to do. Here is how I would shift it for four common cases.
| Community type | Add or stress | Common trap |
|---|---|---|
| Course or learning community | Rules on sharing answers to graded work, respect for beginners, credit for instructor material | Experts talking down to new learners, so the beginners go quiet |
| Paid membership | No resharing of members-only content, how refunds and removals are handled, and an appeals route | Treating paying members as exempt from the rules |
| Support or Q&A forum | Say what you tried, mark accepted answers, no bumping, no private sales pitches in replies | Rude replies to repeat questions |
| Local or professional network | Honest identity, no unsolicited recruiting, privacy of anything shared in confidence | Self-promotion that crowds out discussion |
If your support forum doubles as a customer channel, the customer support community guide goes into how to run it. If you answer questions in public, the Q&A site guide shows how accepted answers keep a thread honest. For paid groups, the paid community guide covers the money side, and your guidelines should say plainly that payment does not buy an exemption.
How do you enforce community guidelines without burning out?
Enforce them early, in private first, and the same way every time. Guidelines that are written but not applied are worse than none, because members learn that the rules are optional.
Start with the first ten minutes of a problem, not the first ten rules. When someone posts something that breaks a rule, deal with the content before the person. Hide or remove the post, then send a short, neutral private message that names the rule and says what to do instead. Most people who break a rule are not villains. They did not read the page, or they had a bad day. A correction in private lets them fix it without losing face.
Keep a written log of every action: who, what, which rule and when. Without one, a month later nobody remembers why a member was suspended, and a second moderator may contradict the first. A log also protects you when a member claims they were singled out.
Agree the ladder in advance and stick to it. Skipping steps for people you like and enforcing hard on people you do not is the fastest way to lose the community’s trust. If a moderator has a personal conflict with a member, someone else should decide the case.
Look after the people doing it. A Michigan study reported by Futurity found that volunteer moderators on large platforms burn out from conflict with other moderators, limited time and daily exposure to toxic behaviour. For a small site that means you should not be the only moderator for long, and you should share the hard cases. Our community moderation guide goes deeper on queues, strikes and team setup, and this piece on AI content and moderation covers a newer problem you may need a rule for.
Finally, review the guidelines every few months against what you actually removed. If you keep hitting a problem the rules do not mention, add it. If a rule never comes up, ask whether it still earns its place.
Where should you put community guidelines on your site?
Put them in front of people at three points: sign-up, onboarding and the place where they post. A page that only lives in the footer is read by almost nobody.
- A permanent page. Publish the full guidelines at a short, stable address, such as /guidelines, and link it in the footer and the main menu. To confirm it worked, open the page in a private window and check you can reach it in two clicks from any screen.
- The sign-up form. Add a required checkbox, such as “I have read and agree to the community guidelines”, with a link to the page. This turns the rules into something the member explicitly accepted, which makes later enforcement much easier. Make sure your sign-up tool can record that acceptance. To confirm it worked, register a test account without ticking the box and check you are blocked.
- Onboarding. Restate the three or four rules that matter most in the first steps a new member sees. With Reign’s colour tokens you can make the checkbox and the welcome screen match your brand. The first minutes after joining are when people form their idea of what is normal here. Our guide to better member onboarding shows how to build that welcome, and the first 100 members guide explains why your earliest members set the tone for everyone after them.
- A pinned post. Pin a short version in your main space or welcome space, and link to the full page. Lead with the friendly version, the one that says what the community is for.
- The report flow. Link the guidelines from the report form, so the person reporting can pick the right reason.
On Reign, your guidelines page is an ordinary WordPress page, so you can style it with the same colours and layout as the rest of the site, and add it to the footer or the header menu without code. If you are still choosing a theme, the community themes comparison covers the options fairly.
How do BuddyNext moderation features map to each guideline?
BuddyNext is a community plugin made by Wbcom Designs, the same company that makes Reign. Its features page lists the moderation tools below as of October 2026. Each one maps to a line in the template, so your rules and your tools say the same thing.
| Part of your guidelines | BuddyNext tool, as the features page describes it |
|---|---|
| 5. How to report | Members report posts, comments and profiles with a reason. Reports are grouped, with an urgency flag at three or more reporters. Reports on direct messages stay private within the queue. |
| 6. Note or correction, and removing content | The moderation queue lets admins dismiss, remove, warn, strike or suspend. It sits in the front-end Community Admin, and each space also has its own Moderation tab. |
| 6. Warning and strike | Warnings, strikes and strike reversals each carry a reason the member can see. Strike thresholds are configurable, and the page gives an example of a warning at 2 strikes and a suspension at 5. |
| 6. Temporary suspension | Suspensions last a set number of days or indefinitely, and lift automatically. |
| 6. Quiet restriction | Shadow-bans stop a member’s posts reaching anyone, without showing them an error. |
| 4. Spam and banned content | Banned words can apply site-wide or per space. Banned hashtags, blocked link domains, blocked IPs, per-minute rate limits and a duplicate-content window are available. A new-member gate flags posts for review. |
| Fast response to reports | Content auto-hides once it passes the report threshold you set, then waits in the queue for review. |
| 7. Appeals | Members can appeal a suspension by stating their case, and approval lifts that suspension. |
| Record keeping | A permanent moderation log records who did what and when. |
Two things the table shows. First, the ladder in the template is the ladder the tool supports, so you do not have to invent a process on a spreadsheet. Second, the reason shown to the member is the same sentence you wrote in your rule. That is why the wording of your rules matters: it is what members will read in their warning.
Some moderation features, including bulk actions and rule-based or AI moderation, need a paid licence, so check the product page for what applies to you. BuddyNext does list a five-step onboarding wizard, covering profile, interests, spaces, follows and notifications, which is a natural place to show your key rules. If you want to see it for yourself before you commit, there is a live BuddyNext demo.
If you are coming from another community plugin and want the full picture of the move, our BuddyPress to BuddyNext migration guide covers it, and the self-hosted platform comparison puts the options side by side, including the forum route that Discourse represents.
A worked example: filling in the template for a small paid community
Here is how the first draft might look for a made-up community called “Studio Circle”, a paid group for freelance designers. It shows how much shorter the filled version is than the template.
Purpose. Studio Circle is a place for freelance designers to share work, swap rates advice and get honest feedback. We want it to be useful, friendly and calm.
Who it covers. Members, moderators and guests, in the feed, spaces, direct messages and our monthly calls.
Expect. Give feedback that names something specific. Say what you tried before asking for help. Credit other people’s work. Keep client names private unless the client has said yes.
Not allowed. Personal attacks, harassment, hate speech, sharing others’ private details, resharing members-only material outside the group, cold pitching members, and encouraging anyone else to do the above.
Reporting. Use the report button, or email help@example.com for anything sensitive. We reply within two working days.
Consequences. A private note first. Then a warning, then a strike, then a suspension. Serious cases go straight to removal. Membership payment does not protect anyone from the rules.
Appeals. Email within 14 days. A moderator who was not involved reviews it.
Changes. We announce significant changes in the welcome space and by email. Last updated: [date].
On a Reign site this whole block sits on one ordinary page in your header menu. That is under 200 words and covers all eight parts. You can always add detail later. It is much harder to remove rules members have already learned to depend on.
How do you launch the guidelines to an existing community?
Announce them, explain why, and give people time to respond. Springing new rules on a community that has run without them produces a backlash, even from members who agree with every line.
- Draft with a few trusted members. Share the draft privately with five to ten people who care about the community. Ask what is unclear and what is missing. To confirm it worked, you should be able to note at least two edits from their feedback.
- Announce before you enforce. Post the final version with a date it takes effect, usually a week or two ahead. Explain, in a few sentences, what prompted the rules and what has not changed.
- Apply them from the start date. Do not go back and punish old posts that were fine under the old regime. Hide or edit what truly violates the new rules and say why.
- Do one round of gentle reminders. For the first couple of weeks, use the private note step more than anything else. To confirm it worked, check your moderation log after two weeks: you should see mostly notes and few suspensions.
- Review after a month. Ask what was confusing, what caused disputes and what you never needed.
Questions people ask
Do I really need community guidelines for a small community?
Yes, but keep them short. Even ten members benefit from knowing what is expected and what to do when something goes wrong. The first conflict is a bad time to start inventing rules, because every decision then looks personal.
Can I copy the Contributor Covenant or another existing code of conduct?
The Contributor Covenant is built to be adopted, and its site offers a builder where you add your contact details and enforcement approach. Check the terms on the version you use and keep the attribution it asks for. For any other published text, read its licence or ask the owners before you copy it. Writing your own from the template above avoids the question.
How do I handle a member who keeps pushing the limits?
Follow your ladder and write down each step. Repeated breaches after a clear private note are exactly what strikes and suspensions are for. Keep your messages calm and factual, quote the rule, and avoid arguing the case in public.
Should guidelines be different for paid and free members?
No. Different standards for different groups breed resentment and confusion. If you have a space with special rules, such as a promotion space, state that in the guidelines. Paying should never be a way around them.
How often should I update them?
Review them every few months and after any serious incident. Tell members when you change anything significant, and show the date of the latest version. Section 8 of the template covers how.
Put your rules where your members will see them
Guidelines only work if people read them, trust them, and see them applied. On a WordPress community you can do all three: a clear page, a sign-up and onboarding flow that points to it, and moderation tools that match what you wrote. Reign gives the community a finished look, so the guidelines page, the welcome flow and the report screens feel like one product. Pair it with BuddyNext, the community engine from the same company at buddynext.com, or another engine you prefer, write the eight sections above, and keep them short enough that people read them.