Community Guidelines

Start with the book and respect the reader

Keep conversations grounded in the book, its ideas, or the reading experience it inspired. Disagreement is welcome; humiliation, intimidation, threats, and targeted harassment are not.

Critique ideas without attacking the person sharing them. Do not encourage others to pile on, pursue, or shame another reader.

Protect privacy and personal safety

Do not publish another person’s address, phone number, private email, financial information, medical information, or other sensitive details without clear permission. Never use Kuumba to threaten physical harm or encourage self-harm.

Delivery addresses are private fulfillment information. They must never appear in a campaign, profile, conversation, reply, or screenshot shared with the community.

No hate, exploitation, or graphic abuse

Kuumba does not allow attacks or dehumanizing content based on race, ethnicity, nationality, religion, caste, disability, sex, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, age, or another protected characteristic.

Do not post sexual exploitation, non-consensual intimate material, graphic violence intended to shock, or content that celebrates abuse. Thoughtful discussion of difficult material in a book is allowed when it is relevant, contextualized, and considerate of other readers.

Be honest about identity, books, and funding

Do not impersonate another person or organization, create deceptive accounts, manipulate engagement, or misrepresent a book request, campaign, price, delivery need, or contribution.

Spam, scams, repetitive promotion, malicious links, and attempts to move readers into unsafe payment arrangements are prohibited. Funding should happen only through Kuumba’s approved checkout experience.

Respect authors and creative work

Discussing and briefly quoting a book can support meaningful conversation, but do not post pirated copies, full chapters, extensive copyrighted passages, or material you do not have permission to share. Credit authors and creators when their work is part of the discussion.

Reporting and blocking

Use Report when a conversation, reply, or profile may violate these guidelines. Reports are reviewed by Kuumba staff, and the reported reader is not told who submitted the report. Do not use reporting to punish someone merely for disagreeing with you.

Use Block when you want to stop seeing or interacting with a reader while signed in. Blocking removes each reader from the other’s Kuumba interactions and personalized views, but it does not erase public material from the open web. Blocking and reporting are separate: blocking shapes your own experience, while reporting asks Kuumba to review a possible community violation.

How Kuumba responds

Kuumba reviews context, severity, history, and the risk of harm. Depending on the situation, staff may take no action, hide or restore content, temporarily restrict posting or requesting, or preserve information when required for safety or legal reasons. Broader suspension tools will be added before the pilot expands.

We aim to apply these guidelines consistently and keep a record of staff decisions. To appeal, contact support@kuumba.app with the affected account or content, approximate decision date, and a short explanation. An appeal does not automatically restore content; where practical, a different staff member reviews it.

Urgent situations

Kuumba is not an emergency service. If you or someone else faces immediate danger, contact local emergency services or an appropriate crisis resource. You may also report the content to Kuumba so we can protect the community within the service.

Never post sexual content involving minors. Kuumba may preserve and report apparent child exploitation, credible threats, fraud, or other unlawful conduct when required or reasonably necessary for safety.