Legal Center

Community Guidelines

Welcome to Materia Market! We're so glad you are interested in being part of our community. This document outlines the general guidelines we have for users of the marketplace, as well as the guidelines and rules to follow for buyers and sellers. Please do not hesitate to contact us is you have any further questions.

Materia Market Code of Conduct

We work hard to keep Materia Market a safe, welcoming, and inclusive place. But we need your help to keep it that way and ask for all of our users to follow the Materia Market Code of Conduct.

Materia Market uses a Code of Conduct to facilitate healthy and constructive community behavior by adopting and enforcing a general set of rules and principles. Codes of conduct help protect our users, but most importantly you. If you buy and sell items in our marketplace, you may find that unproductive attitudes from other users can make you feel drained or unhappy about engaging in the community. In order to avoid this we want to build a welcoming atmosphere.

In the rest of this guide you will find information about:

  • The behavior and ethics of the community
  • How sellers should behave and what items can be posted
  • How buyers should behave and how to positively be involved

Community Guidelines

Building a Strong Community

The primary purpose of the Materia Market community is to allow our users to buy and sell the raw materials used in artistic and craft projects. Although we maintain the app, this is a community we all build together and we need to make it the best it can be.

  • Be welcoming and open-minded
    • Other users may not have the same experience level or background as you, and may not have sold or purchased anything from the community before - but that doesn't mean they don't have a lot to contribute. We encourage you to be welcoming to new users and those just getting started.

  • Respect each other. Nothing sabotages healthy conversation like rudeness. Be kind and professional, and don’t post anything that a reasonable person would consider offensive, abusive, or hate speech. Don’t harass or grief anyone. Treat each other with dignity and consideration in all interactions. You may wish to respond to something by disagreeing with it - and that’s fine. But remember to not criticize others. Avoid name-calling, ad hominem attacks, responding to a someones tone instead of what they are actually saying, and avoid knee-jerk contradiction. Instead, provide reasoned counter-arguments that improve the conversation.

  • Communicate with empathy

    • Disagreements or differences of opinion are a fact of life. Being part of a community means interacting with people from a variety of backgrounds and perspectives, many of which may not be your own. If you disagree with someone, try to understand and share their feelings before you address them. This will promote a respectful and friendly atmosphere where people feel comfortable asking questions, participating in discussions, and making contributions.

  • Be clear and stay on topic

    • People use Materia Market to get unique and high quality materials for their next project. Staying on topic helps produce positive and productive discussions. Additionally, communicating with strangers on the Internet can be awkward. It's hard to convey or read tone, and sarcasm is frequently misunderstood. Try to use clear language, and think about how it will be received by the other person.

What is not allowed

We are committed to maintaining a community where users are free to express themselves. That means you should be respectful and civil at all times, and refrain from attacking others on the basis of who they are. We do not tolerate behavior that crosses the line into the following:

  • Threats of violence

    • You may not threaten violence towards others or use our service to organize, promote, or incite acts of real-world violence or terrorism. Think carefully about the words you use, the images and listings you post, and even the questions you ask, and how they may be interpreted by others. Even if you mean something as a joke, it might not be received that way. If you think that someone else might interpret the content you post as a threat, or as promoting violence or terrorism, stop. Don't post it on Materia Market. In extraordinary cases, we may report threats of violence to law enforcement if we think there may be a genuine risk of physical harm or a threat to public safety.

  • Bullying and harassment

    • We do not tolerate bullying or harassment. This means any habitual badgering or intimidation targeted at a specific person or group of people. In general, if your actions are unwanted and you continue to engage in them, there's a good chance you are headed into bullying or harassment territory.

  • Impersonation

    • You may not seek to mislead others as to your identity by copying another person's avatar, posting content under their name, using a similar username or otherwise posing as someone else. Impersonation is a form of harassment.

  • Doxxing and invasion of privacy

    • Don't post other people's personal information, such as phone numbers, private email addresses, physical addresses, credit card numbers, Social Security/National Identity numbers, or passwords. Depending on the context, such as in the case of intimidation or harassment, we may consider other information, such as photos or videos that were taken or distributed without the subject's consent, to be an invasion of privacy, especially when such material presents a safety risk to the subject.

  • Sexually obscene content

    • Don’t post content that is pornographic. This does not mean that all nudity and content related to sexuality, is prohibited. We recognize that sexuality is a part of life and non-pornographic sexual content may be a part of materials or project, or may be presented for educational or artistic purposes. We do not allow obscene sexual content or content that may involve the exploitation or sexualization of minors.

  • Gratuitously violent content

    • Don’t post violent images, text, or other content. Period. There is no value in this type of content to the community and it will result in the content being removed and your account can be suspended.

  • Misinformation and disinformation

    • You may not post content that presents a distorted view of reality, whether it is inaccurate or false (misinformation) or is intentionally deceptive (disinformation) because such content is likely to result in harm to the community or to interfere with fair and equal opportunities for all to participate. For example, we do not allow content that is counterfeit or a knock that is not clearly labeled as such, or listings that do not reflect an accurate and fair price.

  • Active malware or exploits

    • Being part of a community includes not taking advantage of other members of the community. We do not allow anyone to use our platform for exploit delivery, such as using Materia Market as a means to deliver malicious executables, or code injection with the intention to harm other users.

What happens if someone breaks the rules?

There are a variety of actions that we may take when a user reports inappropriate behavior or content. It usually depends on the exact circumstances of a particular case. We recognize that sometimes people may say or do inappropriate things for any number of reasons. Perhaps they did not realize how their words would be perceived. Or maybe they just let their emotions get the best of them. Of course, sometimes, there are folks who just want to spam or cause trouble.

Each case requires a different approach, and we try to tailor our response to meet the needs of the situation that has been reported. We'll review each abuse report on a case-by-case basis. In each case, we will have a diverse team investigate the content and surrounding facts and respond as appropriate, using these guidelines to guide our decision.

Actions we may take in response to an abuse report include but are not limited to:

  • Content Removal
  • Content Blocking
  • Account Suspension
  • Account Termination

Legal Notice

These are only guidelines; they do not modify our Terms of Service and are not intended to be a complete list. Materia Market retains full discretion under the Terms of Service to remove any content or terminate any accounts for activity that violates our Terms. These guidelines describe when we will exercise that discretion.