Community Rules

Before your first post or reply

You tick one box: "I agree to the Community Rules". We record that you ticked it, with the version of the rules and the date and time. Each time you post or reply, you agree to follow these rules.

Treat everything you post as public. Anyone signed in to Ruebex can read it, including adults and teenagers you don't know. They see your display name, and your profile photo only if you switch on "share my photo in Community". Ruebex has no private messages.

Rules for everyone

1. Be respectful

No bullying, harassment, insults, threats or stalking. No hate against anyone because of their race, ethnicity, nationality, religion, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, disability or age.

2. Protect your privacy and other people's

• Don't post contact or personal details, such as a phone number, address, school, social media name, ID or candidate number, or photos of documents.
• Don't post anyone else's personal information or photos.
• Don't ask anyone, especially younger learners, for contact details or photos, or to chat or meet somewhere else.
• Don't pretend to be someone else, including Ruebex staff, teachers or IELTS officials.

3. Never allowed, for any user of any age

• Child sexual abuse and exploitation: anything sexual involving anyone under 18 (real, drawn or AI-made), grooming, asking a young person for images, or threatening to share images. We report it to the UK National Crime Agency and close the account permanently.
• Terrorism and violent extremism.
• Intimate images shared without consent, real or fake.
• Pornography, nudity and sexual content, including in profile photos.
• Anything that encourages suicide, self-harm or eating disorders, or gives instructions for them.
• Other illegal content, such as threats, hate crime, harassment, selling drugs or weapons, scams and fraud (including fake certificates), and help to break immigration law.
• Other content harmful to young people, such as graphic violence, dangerous challenges, or encouraging harmful substances.

4. Keep it honest and about learning

• Stay on topic: IELTS, English and studying. Ideas about Ruebex go in Suggestions. Suggestions are public, like the rest of Community, so use Contact us for anything private.
• No exam leaks or cheating: no real test questions or answers, no buying or selling certificates or results, and no offers to take the test for someone.
• Only post your own work, or material you have the right to share.
• No spam, adverts or selling without our written permission.
• Don't knowingly spread false information about IELTS.
• Community advice comes from other learners. It is not official IELTS guidance or Ruebex's advice.

5. Names and profile photos

Your display name, leaderboard name and profile photo follow these rules too. No offensive words, contact details, impersonation, nudity, sexual content, violence, ID documents, or other people's photos without their permission.

6. Use Ruebex fairly

Don't attack or overload the service, post automatically, make extra accounts to get around a restriction, or send reports you know are false.

7. Deleting what you post

You can delete your post, but people may already have read it. The same applies to replies. If a post has been reported, or we must keep it for safety or legal reasons, we keep a copy, as our Privacy Policy explains.

What we do when rules are broken

Moderators may hide or remove anything that breaks these rules, and can suspend accounts for serious or repeated problems. Depending on how serious it is, we may hide content, ask you to change it, warn you, stop you posting for a while, suspend or close your account, or report it to the police or the National Crime Agency.

We act when we have good reason to believe that something is illegal or breaks these rules, and we take illegal content down swiftly. A person makes every moderation decision. Only two checks are automatic: a word and pattern check blocks display names and leaderboard names with contact details, links or staff-like names (such as "admin"), and we limit how often each account can post. In serious cases, such as child abuse, terrorism, threats to life and intimate images, we act straight away, without a warning.

How to report

In Ruebex: press Report under the post, reply or photo, choose a reason and tell us what is wrong. If someone may be at risk of harm, tick "This is urgent". Intimate-image and child-safety reports are always treated as urgent.

Without an account: email info@ruebex.com with the subject "Community report". Say which post it is (title, display name and date) and what is wrong. Don't send screenshots of sexual images.

Reports are private. We never tell the person you reported who you are, unless the law requires it.

If someone is in danger right now, contact the emergency services: 999 in the UK, or your local emergency number.

What happens next: you get a reference number straight away. A person reviews your report. We aim to look at every report within 24 hours and to decide within 3 days, the most serious first. You can follow it under Contact us → Your requests. We may not share details of action taken against someone else.

Intimate images: our fast route

An intimate image is a photo or video, real or fake, showing someone nude or partly nude, in underwear, doing something sexual, or using the toilet. If one is shared without consent, the person shown, or someone acting for them, can report it:

• In Ruebex: press Report, choose "Intimate image shared without my consent" and tick the boxes.
• By email: write to info@ruebex.com with the subject "Intimate image report". Say where the content is, that you are the person shown or are acting for them, that you are reporting in good faith and believe the report is true, and how we can contact you.

We hide it as soon as we see your report. We will take it down within 48 hours at the latest after we receive your report, with any copies we find. We will never ask you to send us the image.

Not happy with how we handled it? Email info@ruebex.com with the subject "Urgent complaint: intimate image". We deal with these within 24 hours.

If the person shown is under 18, we also report it to the National Crime Agency. Never forward or share the image, even to report it.

Help: Childline's Report Remove (UK, under 18: childline.org.uk, 0800 1111); Take It Down (under 18: takeitdown.ncmec.org); Revenge Porn Helpline (UK adults: 0345 6000 459); StopNCII.org.

If your post, photo or account is restricted

• We'll tell you, in Ruebex and by email, what we did and which rule it broke, unless that could put someone at risk or harm a police investigation.
• Appeal: within 30 days, press "Ask for a review" on the notice, or email info@ruebex.com with your reference number. Where possible, someone not involved in the decision looks again. We aim to answer within 7 days. If we got it wrong, we put your content back.
• Can't sign in because your account is suspended? Email info@ruebex.com.

Complaints

You can complain if we haven't dealt with illegal or harmful content, if you think we aren't following these rules or our online safety duties, or about action we took against your content or account.

In Contact us, choose Online safety complaint, or email info@ruebex.com with the subject "Safety complaint". We usually reply within 24 hours and answer in full within 14 days, or tell you why we need longer.

If you're still unhappy, ask for your complaint to go to the management of Optamix Tech Ltd, who will review it again. You can also tell Ofcom, the UK online safety regulator (ofcom.org.uk), which does not settle individual complaints.

If you're struggling

You can say that things are hard. Please don't share details of ways to hurt yourself. We may hide posts that do, and email you places to get help.

If you are thinking about hurting yourself, talk to someone you trust today, or contact Samaritans (UK, 116 123, free, any time), Childline (UK, under 19, 0800 1111) or findahelpline.com.

Changes and who we are

If we make a big change to these rules, we'll tell you in Ruebex before it applies. Ruebex is a trading name of Optamix Tech Ltd, registered in England and Wales (company number 17202050). Contact: info@ruebex.com.