Bullying Policy

Bullying, personal attacks, public shaming, harassment, and/or discrimination are never permitted on HEX and will warrant severe consequences, such as time in Azkaban or expulsion, depending on the severity of the situation. Each of these are described in more detail below.



A) Bullying refers to repeated efforts to harm or demean other users, whether physically, emotionally, and/or psychologically. The key here is that such actions are repeated. On HEX, bullying might look like one user going out of their way to post in threads to repeatedly target a specific user/group of users; similarly, it could be as simple as one user recurrently sharing, tagging, owling, or otherwise contacting another user on HEX with the intent of doing them harm.

B) Personal attacks are any posts, shares, owls, or messages that are intended to demean another person and their innate character, as opposed to their actions or stance on various issues. This includes attacking comments made about individuals who are not a part of HEX, such as famous celebrities. For example, saying that "[Celebrity name] is an idiotic orange orangutan because his favorite color is blue" would constitute a personal attack. Instead, you could say something along the lines of "I don't like [Celebrity name]. They think blue is the best color; I don't like that idea at all. The best color is clearly green." to more respectfully express your dislike without resorting to personal attacks.

There are situations in which attacking posts are allowed, however. So long as they abide by all other site terms, including the Disallowed Words List, attacking posts can be used in the following situations:

1) As part of a roleplay post, so long as both parties are roleplaying and consent to having one character personally attack the other.
2) When discussing fictional characters. This includes character accounts on HEX, so long as the attacks do not become excessive or too severe.
3) When talking about animals or inanimate objects.

C) Public shaming is the act of publicly humiliating another individual for something they have done, said, or written. In these posts, something bad is being said about a particular person because of something they have done. More often than not, the intent of these posts is to make the person feel bad or guilty for their actions by criticizing them in a public forum. For example, saying that "HEXuser123 is so greedy for selling Fortune Tokens for 100,000 Galleons" would constitute shaming this user for their business practices.

D) Harassment refers to contacting a user after they have requested that you no longer message them. This includes pranking said user after they have asked you to stop, sending items or anonymous roses to that user as a means of covertly sending them messages, or otherwise owling, tagging, sharing, or contacting them. While you may still participate in public threads in which this user is active, you may not directly address them or attempt to coerce them into addressing you by making pointed comments in the public thread. If a user requests that you do not contact them, then you are required to comply with this request.

E) Discrimination is defined as the unjust or prejudicial treatment of different people, particularly on the grounds of some trait they possess, such as race, age, sex, gender, religion, and/or sexuality. To ensure that you do not engage in discriminatory action on HEX, please abide by the below guidelines when participating in more controversial conversations.

Any user who is involved in discussions that are considered "hot topics" (e.g., religion, politics, LGBTQ+ rights, abortion, etc.) must make sure that everything they post falls in line with all site terms. Any post that is seen as bullying, attacking, shaming, harassment, and/or discrimination against a particular person or group of people, etc., is subject to being edited by Site Staff.

Examples of posts that may be subject to removal include, but are not limited to:
- "Anyone who lives a certain way is wrong and needs to change."
- "Members of this particular group are inherently immoral and will likely go to hell."
- "Users who subscribe to this belief system/religion are bad/bigoted people."

Posts such as these are considered shaming and will not be allowed. You may not phrase messages of discrimination, shaming, or attacks as your opinions. While everyone on HEX is welcome to uphold their own religion, culture, beliefs, etc., we must strive to keep HEX a safe space for all.

In lieu of the disallowed examples above, saying something such as the following would be permissible:
- "I don't agree with certain things that some users/groups do, but I won't delve into it here."

This type of phrasing allows you to assert your opinion without including text that may shame/negatively impact other users, keeping you away from territory that may break the site terms.

While we cannot control what occurs off the website, we still want to suggest a few websites for anyone to view if they are having issues with this topic in other aspects of their lives. The websites are:

- A Teens Guide to Cyber Security
- Resources for Questioning Youth: Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual
- Yellow Ribbon
- Stop Bullying Now
- Digital Citizenship and Cyber Security
- Emergency Internet Safety For Kids
- The Trevor Project
- The National Center for Bullying Prevention
- STOMP Out Bullying
- The Matthew Shepard Foundation
- GLSEN
- The Human Rights Campaign's Welcoming Schools Guide
- PFLAG

If you have questions or would like clarification on these terms at any point, please reach out to any member of Site Staff. They are all listed on the About Us page.