Community Guidelines

Welcome to the Global Marriage Atlas community. Our community is a dedicated space built for cross-cultural marriage families, where you can safely share experiences, seek help, and receive support. To maintain the healthy development of the community, we have established the following guidelines. Please read them carefully before participating in community interactions. Every post, comment, and interaction you make means you agree to abide by these guidelines.

1. Community Mission

Our mission is to create a safe, respectful, and supportive cross-cultural marriage community. We know that many topics in cross-cultural marriage—from cultural conflicts to legal dilemmas, from in-law relationships to parenting disagreements—are often difficult to discuss in public. Therefore, we are committed to creating a safe space where every member can let their guard down and express themselves authentically.

Here, different cultural backgrounds are seen as valuable assets rather than barriers. We encourage understanding differences through a cultural comparison perspective, and responding to each other's confusions with goodwill and empathy. Whether you are preparing for marriage, newlyweds, or have been married for years, whether you face joys or challenges, this community belongs to you. We believe that when people with similar experiences come together, loneliness is replaced by connection, and confusion finds direction.

2. Core Principles

Our community operates based on the following four core principles, and every member should consciously abide by them:

• Respect Cultural Differences: Different cultures have different marriage concepts and family traditions. Do not judge others by your own cultural standards, and understand the historical and social roots behind differences.
• Protect Privacy: The community uses anonymity as its core mechanism. Never attempt to dig up or expose the real identity of other members, and respect everyone's right to choose anonymity.
• Kind Communication: Even when opinions differ, express yourself in a respectful and constructive manner, avoid personal attacks and malicious speculation, and treat every sharer with empathy.
• Seek Professional Help: Community mutual aid cannot replace professional services. For important issues involving legal, mental health, and other matters, we encourage seeking professional help from certified experts.

3. Encouraged Behavior

We encourage the following behaviors to make the community a truly valuable space for mutual aid:

• Share authentic cross-cultural marriage experiences, including success stories and challenges faced. Real experiences are the most valuable reference for others
• Provide helpful, empathetic replies. Even just a word of encouragement or sharing a similar experience can brighten someone's day
• Respect others' right to anonymity. Do not discuss any information inside or outside the community that may expose other members' identities
• Use the report function wisely. When you find violating content, report it to the community management team in a timely manner to help maintain community order
• Learn about different cultures with an open mind, treating every interaction as an opportunity to broaden your horizons

4. Prohibited Behavior

The following behaviors seriously violate the community guidelines. Once discovered, they will be dealt with immediately, and serious offenders will be permanently banned:

• Doxxing: Attempting to identify, expose, or track the real identity of other users through any means. This is the most serious violation of the community's anonymity principle
• Cultural Discrimination: Making discriminatory or derogatory remarks against specific countries, ethnicities, religions, or cultures
• Malicious Attacks: Personal attacks, abuse, harassment, or intimidation against other members
• Commercial Advertising: Posting commercial advertisements, promotional links, or business-soliciting content in the community without permission
• Misinformation: Deliberately fabricating or spreading false information to mislead other members
• Self-Harm Inducement: Posting content that encourages or induces self-harm or suicide, or mocking members who express such thoughts

For content involving self-harm or suicidal tendencies, we will adopt a special care mechanism—not only removing harmful content but also proactively contacting the person to provide crisis assistance resources. Community safety is the responsibility of every member. Please join us in protecting this space.

5. Anonymous Rules in Detail

Anonymity is the most important privacy protection mechanism in our community. The following details the anonymity levels and processing flow:

Anonymity Levels: The community supports three anonymity levels for users to choose from. Fully anonymous—displays no identity information, only showing a system-generated random identifier; nickname only—displays a user-chosen nickname but is not associated with any real identity information; real name—users voluntarily choose to participate with their real identity, but the platform still protects underlying privacy data such as IP. Users can adjust their anonymity level at any time in privacy settings.

Desensitization Process: When a user posts content, the system performs real-time desensitization before the content enters the database. Desensitization includes removing device fingerprints, geolocation metadata, timestamp-related information, and all data that could be used for identity recognition. This process is irreversible—once desensitization is complete, even the platform operations team cannot restore the original information, technically guaranteeing the authenticity of the anonymity commitment.

No IP Recording: At the system architecture design level, we do not record users' IP addresses at all in the community posting pipeline. This means there is technically no possibility of tracing posters through IP. This design decision is our technical endorsement of the anonymity commitment, and is a fundamental difference between us and other community platforms.

6. Content Moderation

We adopt a dual review mechanism of "AI pre-screening + manual review" to maintain community content quality. AI pre-screening—all newly published content is immediately processed through AI models for initial detection after upload, identifying potentially violating content (such as hate speech, spam, personal privacy leaks, etc.). Suspicious content will be temporarily hidden and enter the review queue.

Manual review—the community management team manually reviews content flagged by AI, usually completing the process within 24 hours. Review results include: approved for publication, requested modification, direct deletion, etc. For deleted content, we will notify the author via in-site message and explain the reason.

Report Mechanism: Any community member can report violating content. After a report is submitted, the content will be prioritized in the review queue, and the management team will process and provide feedback within 48 hours. We promise to keep the reporter's identity strictly confidential, and reporting will not affect the reporter's own community reputation. Malicious reporting (such as retaliatory reporting) will be dealt with seriously once discovered.

7. Violation Handling

We adopt a tiered handling mechanism, gradually escalating measures based on the nature and severity of violations:

• Level 1—Warning: First minor violation. A warning notice is sent via in-site message explaining the violation reason and requesting rectification. Content is deleted or modification is requested.
• Level 2—Temporary Suspension: Multiple violations or more serious cases. The account will be temporarily suspended for 7 to 30 days, during which posting and commenting are not possible, but content can still be browsed.
• Level 3—Permanent Ban: Serious violations (such as doxxing, malicious attacks, self-harm inducement, etc.) or repeat offenders. The account will be permanently banned, and all associated data will be cleared.

Handling decisions are made after collective discussion by the community management team to ensure fairness and justice. For content involving illegal behavior, we will preserve evidence and cooperate with judicial authorities in investigations. Users who are dealt with have the right to raise objections through the appeal mechanism.

8. Expert Certification

To help community members identify reliable professional advice, we certify users with professional qualifications. Certified experts' posts will display an exclusive certification badge, indicating that their answers are backed by professional expertise. Certification covers professional fields related to cross-cultural marriage, including legal advisors, psychological counselors, wedding planners, etc.

Users applying for certification need to submit relevant practice certificates or qualification proofs, and will receive the certification badge after passing the platform's review. Certified experts must also abide by the community guidelines and bear a higher duty of care for answers in their professional field. If a certified expert posts misleading professional advice or violates the guidelines in the community, we will revoke their certification badge and handle it through the regular violation process. Certification badges need to be re-reviewed every 12 months to ensure the validity of the certification status.

9. Appeal Mechanism

If you disagree with a violation handling decision, including content deletion, account suspension or ban, etc., you have the right to appeal through the following channel: send an email to appeal@metwed.com, noting your community identifier and the reason for your appeal. We will review the appeal within 7 business days of receipt and provide feedback on the review result.

Appeals are reviewed by an independent review team different from the original decision-maker, ensuring the fairness of the review. If the appeal is successful, we will restore your content or account permissions. We understand that misjudgments can occur, and the appeal mechanism exists to provide a correction channel based on human judgment. We respect every member's legitimate rights, and we ask you to maintain rational communication when appealing.