RallyPoint Community Guidelines

What these guidelines cover

RallyPoint is where veterans, service members and military families talk with each other on Vet Hub. These guidelines apply to everything you post or send on Vet Hub: threads and replies in RallyPoint, direct messages, your display name, and the reports you file. They are part of our Terms of Service.

What you post in RallyPoint is visible to other signed-in members, together with your display name, service branch, era and state.

Direct messages are private between you and the other person, and only members who follow each other can start one.

The short version

• Disagree as hard as you like. Do not attack people.
• Share what happened to you. Do not tell other members what to do about their health, their legal case or their money.
• If a member is in danger, point them to help. Do not post methods or encouragement.
• No ads, no scams, and no offers of paid help with VA claims.
• Keep private information private, yours and other people's.
• Report what breaks these guidelines. You can block any member at any time.

If you are in crisis or thinking about suicide, help is available 24/7. Veterans Crisis Line: Dial 988 then Press 1, chat online at VeteransCrisisLine.net/Chat, or text 838255.

What is not allowed

You may not post or send:

1. Harassment, threats and bullying. This includes telling someone to hurt or kill themselves, repeated unwanted contact, and urging others to pile on.
2. Hate speech. Slurs, and attacks on a person or group because of who they are, including their race, ethnicity, national origin, religion, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, disability, or military service history.
3. Sexual content. Sexually explicit material is not allowed. Sexual content involving anyone under 18 is never allowed. Intimate images shared without the consent of the person in them are never allowed; see our Take It Down page.
4. Violence. Threats, glorifying violence, or instructions meant to hurt people.
5. Self-harm content. Content that encourages, mocks or gives methods for self-harm or suicide. This is about content that harms others. Talking about your own struggle is welcome (see "Crisis and self-harm" in section 4).
6. Private information about others. Do not post anyone's home address, phone number, workplace, medical or military records, or other identifying details without their consent.
7. Impersonation. Do not pretend to be another person, a VA employee, an accredited representative, a government agency or a member of the Vet Hub team.
8. Spam and advertising. No promotions, link-stuffing, chain posts or sales pitches (section 5).
9. Knowingly false or misleading information that could hurt others, such as invented benefit deadlines, fake eligibility rules or health claims. A person decides whether something is simply wrong or harmfully misleading.
10. Anything illegal. This includes child sexual abuse material, intimate images shared without consent, scams, and other people's copyrighted work posted without permission. See our copyright page for copyright complaints.
11. Automation and abuse. No bots, scraping, fake accounts, or attempts to get around the platform's security.

What is fine. Veterans speak plainly. Frustration with the VA, a benefits office or a process is not harassment, and strong language that is not aimed at a person or group is fine. Disagreement is fine.

Rules that come from this community

Experience is welcome. Advice is not.

Vet Hub does not give medical, legal, financial or mental-health advice, and neither do posts in RallyPoint.

• Say "this is what happened to me," not "this is what you should do."
• Do not present guesses about eligibility, ratings, deadlines or medications as fact.
• Do not tell another member to start, stop or change treatment, or to skip a deadline or a filing.
• Point to official sources: the VA, an accredited representative, a licensed professional.

Vet Hub is not part of the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, and is not affiliated with it.

Crisis and self-harm

• Talking about your own struggle is welcome here. Our posting filter never blocks crisis language.
• When a thread or reply looks like it may be about suicide or crisis, RallyPoint shows the Veterans Crisis Line below it: Dial 988 then Press 1, or text 838255.
• Do not post methods, plans or encouragement for self-harm or suicide, and do not tell anyone to hurt themselves.
• If you are worried about another member, use Report and choose "Self-harm or suicide concern." We do not monitor reports around the clock, so do not wait for us: if someone needs help right now, point them to the Veterans Crisis Line.

Service history and identity

• Do not harass or demean a member over their branch, rank, job, era, discharge, combat or non-combat service, disability rating, gender, or how they use their benefits.
• Do not demand proof of someone's service or accuse them of lying about it. If you think someone is committing fraud, report the post and let us look.
• Friendly rivalry between branches is fine as long as it is not aimed at a person.

Privacy

• Do not post your Social Security number, VA claim or file numbers, medical records or anything else you would not want other signed-in members to see.
• The threads and replies you wrote are deleted when you delete your account. A thread other members replied to stays so their replies are not lost, with its title and text replaced by "[Removed by its author]" and your name removed.
• You can delete your own replies.

Paid help with VA claims

Do not offer, or advertise, to prepare, present or file VA claims for a fee. Federal law limits who may help with VA claims and what they may charge. Accredited representatives of veterans service organizations help for free.

Both languages, same rules

You can post in English or in Spanish. These guidelines apply the same way in both, and our posting filter checks both.

Sponsors and advertising

• Members may not advertise or solicit. That includes promotional posts, strings of links and shouted sales pitches. If you own, work for or are paid by a business you mention, say so.
• Sponsor content comes from the sponsors. Sponsor cards are supplied by the sponsors themselves. They are labeled "Sponsored" and sit next to a link to the Sponsor Content Disclaimer. A sponsor's presence on Vet Hub is not an endorsement.
• We do not share your individual profile with sponsors.
• Report sponsor content that is inaccurate, misleading or harmful through the contact form (section 8).

How reporting and enforcement work

The posting filter

When you post a thread or a reply, an automated filter checks it first. It blocks a short list of slurs, direct "go hurt yourself"-style harassment, strings of three or more links, and all-capital promotional shouting. If it blocks your post, it tells you why so you can rewrite it. The filter is a first net, not a moderation system. It is narrow on purpose, it does not read direct messages, and it will miss things. Reports are how most problems reach us.

Reporting

On any thread, reply, person you are messaging, or single direct message, you can choose Report, pick a reason and add details. The reasons are: harassment or threats, hate speech, spam or advertising, misinformation, sexual content, self-harm or suicide concern, violence, impersonation, and other. The member you report is not told who reported them.

What happens to a report

1. Automated first check. The text of a reported post or thread is sent to an automated AI reviewer, provided by Anthropic, for a first-pass check. For a reported direct message, the message text is sent only if you were part of that conversation, and never for a message you wrote yourself. A report about a member, rather than about a particular post or message, is checked too, but no content is attached: the reviewer sees only the reason you chose.
2. If the AI reviewer sees a clear violation, a reported post or thread is hidden, and the author's ability to post and message is paused until a person restores it. If the report was about a direct message or about a member, nothing is hidden, but the ability of the member who wrote the message, or of the member you reported, to post and message is paused in the same way. If it sees no violation, or is not sure, the item stays visible and the report waits for a person. If the reviewer is unavailable, the report simply waits for a person.
3. A person decides. A member of the Vet Hub team reviews the report and either upholds it or dismisses it. If it is upheld, the content stays hidden. If it is dismissed, the content is shown again.
4. You hear back. The member who filed the report gets an in-app notification of the outcome, and an email if they have community email turned on.

The automated reviewer's verdict is for our team. It does not decide anything final, and the app does not show it to the member who reported or to the member who was reported.

Actions on an account

Where a member's conduct calls for it, a person at Vet Hub can change the standing of an account. The options are: posting paused, account disabled, suspended until a stated date, or permanently banned. While any of these is in place the account cannot post threads or replies or send direct messages.

When a person at Vet Hub changes the standing of your account, we tell you, with the reason and, for a suspension, the date it ends, in the app and by email. Account notices cannot be turned off.

Choosing a response

We choose the response based on how serious the conduct is, whether it is a pattern, and the risk to others. A first, minor problem may only mean a removed post. Threats, content involving minors, and other illegal content can lead straight to permanent removal and a report to the authorities. We may remove content or accounts at our discretion.

If you think we got it wrong

You can ask us to look at a decision again, whether it removed your content, paused your posting, or changed your account standing. The account notice we email you says the same.

To ask:

1. Open the contact form at vethub.app/contact.
2. Choose the topic Other and start your message with the word Appeal.
3. Tell us the email address on your account, the date of the notice or decision, and why you think it was a mistake.

A member of the Vet Hub team will look at it again, and where more than one person is available it will be someone who was not the first reviewer. If we decide we made a mistake, we will restore your content or your account standing and tell you. If we do not, we will tell you why.

The contact form does not email you a receipt, so write down the date you sent it.

If the filter blocked your post, the way to fix it is to rewrite the post. There is nothing to appeal.

Contacting us, and reporting outside the app

• Contact form: vethub.app/contact (topic Other). Messages go to a queue that a person at Vet Hub reads, but the form is not monitored 24/7.
• Copyright complaints: see our copyright page.
• Intimate images shared without consent: see our Take It Down page.
• Child safety: content that sexually exploits a child is illegal. If you see it, report it in the app and do not copy or forward it.
• A member in danger: Veterans Crisis Line: Dial 988 then Press 1, chat online at VeteransCrisisLine.net/Chat, or text 838255.

Changes to these guidelines

We may update these guidelines. The version and date at the top of this page show which text applies.

Related documents

Terms of Service · Privacy Policy · Sponsor Content Disclaimer · Copyright and DMCA · Take It Down