Community Guidelines
This is a small place where people do real work together. The rules are short because they are the ones we will actually enforce.
What we expect
Do the work you agreed to
Companies get real deliverables and apprentices get real experience only if the commitment is real. Agree hours you can actually keep, and say so early when you cannot.
Say when you are stuck
Nobody is penalised for being blocked. Silence until a deadline slips costs the client and your reference; a message on day one costs nothing.
Review the code, not the person
Feedback names the change and the reason. "This leaks a connection on the error path" is useful. "This is sloppy" is not.
Keep client material confidential
Briefs, credentials, code and anything else a company shares stay inside the project. Ask before showing work in a portfolio.
Represent yourself accurately
Claimed experience is checkable. Mentors clear a 5-year bar and a real interview, and a profile that overstates it damages every other mentor here.
What ends an account
Harassment of any kind
Threats, slurs, sexual attention, or repeated contact after someone has asked you to stop. This ends an account, not a conversation.
Discrimination
Treating someone differently because of who they are rather than what they do.
Taking the work off-platform
Arranging paid work with a client or mentor you met here, outside the platform, cuts out the protections and the payment terms both sides rely on.
Passing off work you did not do
Submitting someone else's code as your own defeats the entire point of a reference from us.
Spam and soliciting
Mass messaging, recruiting, or advertising to people you met through the platform.
Reporting something
Signed-in users can report a person or a piece of content from the menu on their profile, message thread, session or review. Reports reach a moderator, never the person being reported. We may come back to you for detail, and we will tell you when it is closed.
If something is urgent or you would rather not use the in-app form, email support@blacksmith.works.
These guidelines sit alongside the Terms of Service, which govern where the two overlap.