Community and Content Rules

Botfolio is intended to be a constructive educational community for robotics students, mentors, teams, and enthusiasts. These Community and Content Rules are designed to help keep the platform useful, respectful, safe, and focused on sharing robotics knowledge.

By using Botfolio, you agree to follow these rules. These rules supplement the Botfolio Terms of Use and apply to user accounts, profiles, team pages, designs, CAD files, images, comments, tags, links, downloads, and other content or activity on the platform.

Be Respectful

Treat other users, teams, students, mentors, and members of the robotics community with respect.

Do not post or engage in harassment, bullying, threats, intimidation, hate speech, personal attacks, sexual comments, humiliating or degrading material, or content intended to frighten, embarrass, target, or abuse another person.

Disagreements about designs, engineering decisions, competition strategies, or technical approaches are expected. Criticism should focus on the design, idea, or technical issue rather than attacking the person or team that submitted it.

Protect Personal Information

Do not post another person's private or sensitive information without permission.

This includes home addresses, private telephone numbers, personal email addresses, exact dates of birth, school schedules, precise or live locations, passwords, API keys, authentication credentials, private account information, financial information, or other information that could reasonably create a privacy, security, or safety concern.

Users should be particularly careful about information concerning minors. Do not use Botfolio to expose, collect, solicit, or distribute sensitive personal information about a child or teenager.

Upload Only Content You May Share

Only upload designs, CAD files, photographs, documents, images, technical information, and other content that you created or have permission to share publicly.

Do not upload another person's or team's design without appropriate permission. Do not upload confidential team information, restricted or stolen files, proprietary sponsor or third-party information, copyrighted photographs or documents you are not authorized to share, private communications, or other material subject to confidentiality or ownership restrictions.

If content was developed as part of a robotics team, school, organization, sponsor relationship, or collaborative project, make sure you have any permission reasonably necessary to share it publicly.

Do not upload photographs, videos, or other media containing identifiable people unless you have appropriate permission to make that material publicly available.

Remember that Botfolio is a design-sharing platform. Publicly submitted content may be viewed, discussed, analyzed, copied, or downloaded by other users. Do not upload confidential designs, private team CAD files, or other material that you or your team do not want publicly available.

Do Not Post Unsafe or Harmful Content

Do not use Botfolio to distribute malware, malicious code, harmful executable files, phishing links, or other content designed to compromise an account, device, computer system, or network.

Do not post intentionally dangerous instructions designed to injure someone, damage property, facilitate unlawful activity, or encourage the deliberate unsafe use of robotics equipment.

Ordinary robotics designs are not prohibited merely because building and operating robots involves normal engineering risks. Users are expected to independently evaluate designs, follow appropriate safety practices, use qualified adult supervision when appropriate, and comply with applicable competition rules and manufacturer instructions.

Do not upload sexual or intimate imagery, exploitative material, content that sexualizes, exploits, solicits, grooms, or endangers a minor, or other unlawful or seriously harmful content. Botfolio may take immediate action when content or conduct creates a credible child-safety or personal-safety concern.

Do Not Misuse the Platform

Use Botfolio for legitimate educational, technical, and community purposes.

Do not impersonate another person, team, school, company, organization, or official representative. Do not falsely claim a team affiliation, team leadership position, ownership interest, credential, endorsement, or other relationship that you do not have.

Do not create accounts to evade a warning, restriction, suspension, or ban. Do not create or coordinate multiple accounts for abusive, deceptive, or manipulative purposes.

Do not manipulate likes, tags, downloads, rankings, reports, or other platform features. This includes coordinated voting or reporting intended to unfairly promote, suppress, punish, or target another user or team.

Do not engage in spam, scams, fraud, phishing, deceptive promotions, repetitive unsolicited posting, or mass uploading that interferes with normal use of the platform.

Do not use automated bots, scripts, crawlers, scraping tools, or similar technology to access, collect, copy, or manipulate Botfolio content or systems without permission. Do not bypass authentication requirements, rate limits, upload restrictions, access controls, security features, or other safeguards, and do not interfere with, disrupt, overload, damage, probe, or attempt to compromise Botfolio or another user's account.

Protect Minors and Keep Interactions Appropriate

Botfolio is expected to be used by teenagers as well as adults. All interactions with minors must remain appropriate to an educational robotics community.

Do not use Botfolio to solicit inappropriate communications, sexual content, private meetings, personal contact information, or other interactions with a minor that create a safety or exploitation concern.

Do not pressure a minor to move a conversation to a private communication service for an inappropriate purpose, request sensitive personal information from a minor, or engage in grooming, exploitation, sexual solicitation, or similar conduct.

Conduct involving the exploitation, solicitation, grooming, or endangerment of a minor may result in immediate account action and, where appropriate, referral to relevant authorities.

Copyright and Intellectual Property

Respect the intellectual-property rights of other users, teams, schools, organizations, sponsors, and third parties.

Do not upload material that you know you do not have the right to share. Copyrighted designs, photographs, drawings, manuals, documents, CAD files, software, or other content should not be copied or posted merely because the material can be found online.

Copyright complaints are handled under Botfolio's Copyright and Takedown Policy. Botfolio may temporarily restrict disputed content while a complaint is reviewed and may take action against accounts associated with repeated infringement.

Reporting Problems

If you encounter content or conduct that may violate these rules, use the Report option available near the relevant content or visit the Botfolio Report Content page.

Reports may concern inappropriate or unsafe content, harassment or bullying, personal or private information, copyright or ownership issues, impersonation or false team affiliation, spam or scams, malicious links, intimate or nonconsensual imagery, threats or credible safety concerns, confidential or restricted team information, malware, manipulation of platform features, or other suspected violations.

General concerns may also be sent to support@botfoliohq.com.

Security concerns, compromised accounts, malicious files, exposed credentials, or other security issues should be reported to security@botfoliohq.com.

Urgent reports involving intimate or nonconsensual imagery, serious privacy concerns, or security matters may also be sent to security@botfoliohq.com.

Enforcement

Botfolio may review reported or suspected violations and determine the appropriate action based on the nature, context, severity, and history of the conduct.

Depending on the circumstances, Botfolio may take no action, hide or restrict content while a matter is reviewed, remove content, remove tags or comments, warn a user, restrict account features, temporarily suspend an account, permanently ban an account, preserve information reasonably necessary to investigate an incident, or take other appropriate steps.

Botfolio may act immediately when content or conduct presents a credible safety, privacy, security, child-protection, malware, or other serious concern. Serious threats, unlawful conduct, exploitation of minors, or other significant matters may be reported to appropriate service providers, legal counsel, law enforcement, or other authorities when reasonably necessary.

A report, downvote, or complaint does not automatically mean that content will be permanently removed or an account will be penalized. Botfolio may review the circumstances before determining the appropriate action. Coordinated or abusive reporting may itself violate these rules.

Botfolio is not required to continuously monitor every design, file, comment, profile, or other item posted on the platform, and the fact that content remains available does not mean Botfolio has reviewed, approved, certified, or endorsed it.

Questions About These Rules

Questions about the Community and Content Rules may be sent to support@botfoliohq.com.

Use of Botfolio is also subject to the Terms of Use, Privacy Policy, and Copyright and Takedown Policy.