1. Respect the community

Football debate can be emotional and tribal, but all users are expected to engage respectfully with referees, players, clubs and fellow supporters.

You must not:

• Threaten, harass or intimidate other users
• Encourage abuse towards referees, players, officials or other users
• Organise, encourage or participate in targeted harassment campaigns
• Post discriminatory or hateful content
• Use slurs or language targeting race, nationality, religion, disability, gender or sexual orientation
• Publish personal or private information about any individual

2. Criticism vs abuse

Arbitrater is built around fan opinion and debate about refereeing decisions. Users are free to criticise performances, disagree with decisions and discuss controversial incidents.

However, criticism must remain within reasonable boundaries. Arbitrater does not endorse harassment, intimidation or defamatory conduct towards referees, officials or any other individuals.

You must not:

• Make threats against referees, players, clubs or users
• Accuse individuals of criminal conduct as fact without reliable evidence
• Present speculation, rumours or unverified allegations as established fact
• Encourage targeted harassment campaigns
• Encourage or incite real-world abuse, intimidation or confrontation
• Post abusive or degrading personal attacks

Arbitrater ratings, fan bias metrics, polls and discussions represent aggregated fan opinion only and should not be interpreted as objective factual findings, allegations of misconduct or professional assessments of any referee, official, player or organisation.

3. No manipulation or artificial activity

To protect the integrity of referee ratings and community voting, users must not attempt to artificially manipulate the platform.

Prohibited behaviour includes:

• Creating multiple accounts
• Automated voting or bot activity
• Coordinated manipulation campaigns
• Spam posting or mass commenting
• Using scripts or scraping tools without permission
• Attempting to interfere with platform functionality or security

4. User-generated content

Users are responsible for any comments, forum posts, usernames, profile content or other material they publish on Arbitrater.

You must not post content that:

• Is unlawful, defamatory or fraudulent
• Contains hate speech or extremist content
• Contains pornography or explicit sexual material
• Promotes violence or self-harm
• Impersonates another person, organisation or public figure
• Infringes intellectual property rights
• Contains malicious software or phishing links

5. Reporting content

Users may report comments, posts or accounts that they believe violate these guidelines.

Reports are reviewed internally by Arbitrater moderators. We reserve the right to remove content, restrict visibility, suspend accounts or take other moderation action where we reasonably consider content to be abusive, defamatory, harmful, unlawful or otherwise inconsistent with these guidelines.

Abuse of reporting systems, including false or malicious reporting, may itself result in moderation action.

6. Moderation and enforcement

Arbitrater reserves the right to moderate content and enforce these guidelines in order to protect the integrity and safety of the platform.

We may take action including:

• Removing or hiding content
• Restricting visibility of posts or comments
• Temporarily suspending accounts
• Permanently banning users
• Resetting or removing manipulated votes
• Restricting access to platform features

Use of Arbitrater does not guarantee the right to publish or maintain content on the platform. We may remove, restrict or moderate content where we consider it necessary to protect users, referees, officials, the wider community or the integrity of the platform.

Moderation decisions are made at Arbitrater's discretion and may be applied without prior warning in serious cases. Arbitrater may also cooperate with legal authorities where required by applicable law.

7. Minors and safety

Arbitrater is intended for users aged 18 and above.

Users must not:

• Exploit or target minors
• Share inappropriate material involving minors
• Attempt to obtain sensitive personal information from minors

8. Advertising, betting and promotions

Certain features, advertisements or partnerships on Arbitrater may be subject to age or geographic restrictions.

Users are responsible for ensuring that their use of any betting-related or promotional content complies with the laws applicable in their jurisdiction.

9. Changes to these guidelines

We may update these Community Guidelines from time to time to reflect platform changes, moderation practices or legal requirements.

10. Contact

If you have questions about these Community Guidelines or wish to report a serious issue, please contact us.