Community Guidelines for Baxstory
Last Updated:
Introduction
Welcome to Baxstory! Our mission is to create a vibrant and safe community for spontaneous social connections. We believe in fostering real-world interactions that are rooted in respect, kindness, and authenticity.
These Community Guidelines are designed to ensure that everyone has a positive experience on the App. They outline the standards of behavior and content that we expect from all our users. In these Guidelines, “App” also includes our website at baxstory.com; together they’re the same service for purposes of these Guidelines.
These guidelines are an integral part of our Terms of Service. Your use of the Baxstory App is conditioned on your compliance with both these guidelines and our Terms, and a violation of these guidelines is a violation of the Terms of Service which may result in the suspension or termination of your account.
What We Expect from Our Community
To help us maintain a positive and safe environment, we ask that you:
Be Respectful and Kind: Treat all users with courtesy and respect. We encourage friendly and considerate interactions, even if you don't share the same views.
Be Authentic: Your profile should accurately represent who you are. Do not impersonate others or create deceptive profiles.
Contribute Positively: Engage with the community in a way that is constructive and welcoming.
Protect Privacy: Be mindful of the information you share about yourself and others. Do not post private or personally identifiable information without explicit consent.
What We Don't Tolerate
To keep Baxstory safe and welcoming for everyone, we have a zero-tolerance policy for certain behaviors and content. Do not engage in or promote any of the following:
Harassment and Hate Speech: We do not tolerate any form of harassment, bullying, or intimidation. This includes targeting individuals or groups based on their race, ethnicity, religion, gender, sexual orientation, disability, or any other characteristic. Hate speech, doxxing (sharing private information to harass), or stalking are strictly prohibited.
Violence and Threats: Do not post or share content that promotes, glorifies, or threatens violence. We have no tolerance for content that advocates for self-harm, illegal acts, or sexual exploitation.
Sexually Explicit Content: Keep it clean. We strictly prohibit nudity, sexually explicit material, or any content of a suggestive nature, including in your profile picture, username or display name, profile description, and profile fields.
Spam and Commercial Activity: Do not send unsolicited messages, spam, or chain letters. Unapproved advertising or commercial use isn’t allowed. For any commercial inquiries, contact support@baxstory.com.
Data Scraping or Harvesting: Do not scrape, crawl, index, mine, or otherwise collect the App or website (including user content) by automated means (e.g., bots, spiders, scripts), or attempt to bypass rate limits or security. See the Terms of Service for details.
Impersonation: Do not pretend to be someone you're not. This includes misrepresenting your identity, affiliation, or creating deceptive profiles.
Illegal Content: Any content that is illegal, such as promoting illegal drug use or criminal activities, is strictly forbidden.
Intellectual Property Infringement: Only post content that you own or have the right to use. Do not share copyrighted or trademarked material without permission.
Sharing Private Information: Do not share private, personal, or confidential information about yourself or others without explicit consent.
Child Safety / Exploitation: Absolutely no sexual content involving minors, grooming, solicitation of minors, or any content that sexualizes children. We will report apparent child sexual abuse material (CSAM) to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC) as required by U.S. law and preserve relevant information as legally required.
Location Misuse / Stalking: Do not attempt to monitor, triangulate, or pinpoint someone’s exact location, including trying to reverse-engineer distance buckets, scraping location data, or encouraging others to meet in unsafe or coercive situations.
Fraud and Illegal Transactions: No scams, requests for money, sale of illegal goods/services, or coordination of criminal activity.
Ban Evasion: Creating new accounts to circumvent a suspension or termination is prohibited and will result in permanent removal.
Block Evasion: Do not attempt to circumvent blocks in an attempt to discover someone who has blocked you (e.g., by creating new accounts).
Age Misrepresentation: Do not misrepresent your age. Users under 13 are not permitted; ages 13–17 may use the App only with a parent/guardian’s permission as described in our Terms.
False or Bad-Faith Reports: Do not abuse the reporting tools to harass or silence others.
This list is not exhaustive, but it provides a clear framework for what we consider unacceptable.
Safety & Location
Baxstory uses approximate location for proximity discovery—not tracking. To keep everyone safe and aligned with our Privacy Policy and Terms:
Not for Monitoring or Surveillance: Baxstory is not designed for employee monitoring, workplace tracking, or continuous location surveillance.
Approximate Distance Only: Distances are shown in coarse buckets (e.g., 25-meter increments; capped at "150+m") and never expose exact coordinates.
Background Location (Optional): Background Location Updates are off by default and require an explicit in-app opt-in (and, on iOS, granting "Always"); they’re not available on the web. You can turn them off anytime in Settings → Background Location Updates. Without new updates, visibility auto-expires after approximately 30 minutes until you reopen the App in "Active" mode.
Mutual Show Distance (Optional): Distance only appears when both users have enabled "Show Distance" in Settings.
Incognito & Sign Out: Going "Incognito" or signing out immediately stops location updates, deletes your last known location, and hides your profile. Simply force-quitting the App stops updates, but without new updates your profile may remain visible near your last location for up to approximately 30 minutes before it disappears.
Use Common-Sense Safety: Meet in public places and be mindful of your surroundings. Do not use the App while driving or in situations requiring your full attention.
Not for Emergencies: If you need help, call 911 or your local emergency number. Baxstory cannot contact emergency services.
We may adjust operational parameters (like detection radius, bucket sizes, or freshness windows) from time to time to improve safety, privacy, and reliability, as reflected in our Privacy Policy.
Consequences and Enforcement
We are committed to enforcing these guidelines to ensure a safe and respectful community for everyone. We have zero tolerance for objectionable content and abusive users. We review and act on valid reports within 24 hours, including removal of content and, where appropriate, suspension or ejection of the offending account. We reserve the right to review and take action on any account at our sole discretion.
Reporting a Violation: If you encounter content or behavior that you believe violates these guidelines, please report it to us immediately. We will review all reports and take appropriate action.
Enforcement Actions: Violations of these guidelines will be met with a range of enforcement actions. For minor offenses, this may include a formal warning sent to your registered email address or the removal of specific content. For severe or repeated offenses, we may temporarily suspend or permanently terminate your account. Permanent termination results in the immediate deletion of your last known location, removal of your push token, setting your profile to "Incognito" status, and may remotely sign out active sessions.
Law-Enforcement Reporting: Where required or appropriate (for example, credible threats or child safety), we may report content to law enforcement or relevant authorities and preserve related information as legally required.
Feature or Visibility Limits: We may limit features (e.g., appearing in nearby results) or apply rate limits as an intermediate step before suspension.
Our Discretion: We are not obligated to monitor all content, but we reserve the right to do so. We may remove content, suspend, or terminate accounts without prior notice if we determine, at our sole discretion, that a violation has occurred or that a user's behavior is inconsistent with the spirit of these guidelines and is detrimental to the community.
Blocking: Use the in-app Block feature to prevent another user from viewing your profile or contacting you. Blocked users aren’t notified.
Intellectual Property Complaints: We may remove content upon a valid IP complaint, and—where appropriate—suspend or terminate accounts of repeat infringers, consistent with our Terms of Service.
Repeat Infringers: Consistent with our Terms, we may disable or terminate accounts that receive multiple valid copyright complaints.
Appeals: If you believe an enforcement action was a mistake, contact support@baxstory.com and we’ll review. We may decline to reverse actions if we determine they were appropriate.
Reporting & Contact
How to report in the App:
Open the user’s profile → tap Report/Flag (top right) → choose a reason → submit.
You can also Block a user from their profile to prevent contact; they aren’t notified.
Your safety and experience are our top priorities. If you have any questions about these guidelines or wish to report content or a user you believe is in violation, please contact us directly by emailing: support@baxstory.com
We may update these Guidelines from time to time. Material changes will be noted here and may also be shown in-app.
Questions or Feedback: For questions about these Guidelines, contact us at support@baxstory.com.