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7. Our review

Some ground rules.

These are set and enforced by the mastodon.science.social moderators.

1. Scholarly Integrity and Source Attribution
   All posts must accurately represent empirical evidence or clearly distinguish conjecture from established knowledge. Citations to peer-reviewed literature, preprints, or reputable data repositories are expected where claims extend beyond common knowledge.
2. Evidence-Focused Dialogue
   Discourse should remain centred on verifiable data, reproducible methodologies, and logical reasoning. Personal attacks, appeals to authority without substantiation, or the dissemination of unverified rumours are prohibited.
3. Rigorous Anti-Discrimination and Safe-Space Commitment
   The instance enforces active, visible moderation against racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, antisemitism, white-supremacist ideologies, ableism, and other forms of bigotry. Users must have full confidence that science.social constitutes a scholarly environment free from harassment and hate speech found on less-regulated platforms.
4. Responsible Communication of Preliminary Findings
   Authors sharing early-stage results or preprints must label them explicitly as preliminary and provide sufficient methodological detail to permit critical appraisal and replication.
5. Promotion of Open Science Practices
   Users are strongly encouraged to share code, data, and protocols under open licences when legally and ethically permissible, thereby fostering transparency, replication, and cumulative knowledge-building.
6. Privacy and Ethical Data Stewardship
   Personal or sensitive data—especially relating to human subjects—may only be posted in accordance with relevant ethical approvals, data-protection regulations (e.g., GDPR), and journalistic standards of anonymisation.
7. Conflict-of-Interest Disclosure
   When discussing research, products, or services in which a user has a financial, professional, or personal stake, the relationship must be clearly disclosed within the same post or thread.
8. Respectful Critique and Peer Review Etiquette
   Critical commentary should target ideas or methods, not individuals. Constructive feedback must be specific, evidence-based, and delivered in a manner consistent with the norms of professional peer review.
9. No Plagiarism or Misrepresentation
   Republishing another’s work without permission, or presenting it as original, is grounds for removal and potential suspension. Summaries or quotations must include proper attribution and, where feasible, direct links to the original source.
10. Compliance with Legal and Institutional Regulations
    Users are responsible for ensuring their content aligns with applicable laws (copyright, export controls, human-subjects research), institutional policies, and funding-agency mandates. Moderators may require edits or removals to maintain compliance.