Hypothesis Community Guidelines

Hypothesis is an open platform for annotation and discussion of web resources. We believe annotations can improve conversations on the web and we hope communities thrive by sharing knowledge and collaborating.

We have a set of guidelines for participating in public conversations through annotations. By Public, we mean annotations that are published to the Hypothesis Public channel.

Things you should do

  • Be civil. When there’s disagreement, be respectful.
  • Make sure your annotations are relevant, constructive, informative and well-intentioned.
  • Ask good questions; cite facts and useful data.
  • Keep jokes pertinent.
  • Listen.
  • Educate, share knowledge, lead by example.

Things you shouldn’t do

  • Engage in illegal activity.
  • Circumvent copyright or post copyrighted works in annotations.
  • Reveal other people’s private information.
  • Engage in personal attacks, trolling or harassment against other users.
  • Engage in marketing or advertising of offerings from you or others.
  • Post explicit content.
  • Clutter the public channel with test messages.

Use of the Hypothesis service is a privilege, not a right. We reserve the right to limit, suspend or terminate users who violate these guidelines.

We are committed to build an open platform based on our principles.

Updated: 12 Sep 2018