Be creative and courteous; look out for each other; grow and support the growth of others.

Community Guidelines

The Represent community portal is a diverse community of individuals, all of whom are here because we have creativity to express and because we deserve the opportunity to do so for a living. Use this space as a place to learn, share, and connect. When you join us, you are committing to communicate cooperate, and collaborate while respecting one another’s beliefs, interests, ideas, and property.

The guidelines below are designed to help us all make the most of our experience in this community. They will continuously evolve as long as the portal exists and do not represent a comprehensive list of all behavior that is deemed acceptable and unacceptable. If you have any questions or concerns, please contact us here.

Code of Conduct

Remember that we are all humans. We can’t lay eyes on each other, but we can be fairly certain that is true. This community was founded on the idea that all humans deserve respect, dignity, and equity. Treat others as you’d like to be treated. Understand that everyone has feelings and everyone has flaws. Be compassionate and courteous.

We have a zero tolerance policy on hate speech. Comments or content that degrade any race, religion, gender, age, or abilities are not acceptable and will result be removed from the Represent community and may cause the author to be banned.

We also have a zero tolerance policy on harassment. Respect other members space. Any reports of stalking, threats, bullying, intimidation, invading privacy, or revealing other people’s personal information are taken seriously. This includes taking screenshots of other people’s profiles, information, or conversations and distributing them publicly. Members found to be in violation of this policy will be banned.
- This is a site for professional networking; it is not for dating. Any romantic or sexual advances (or other unwelcome social contact) towards other members may be deemed harassment and grounds for removal from the community.

Be tolerant and constructive. This is a place to learn, grow, be exposed to new techniques, ideas, and perspectives. Understand that some individuals here will have different professional experience and different life experience. If someone says something you find naive or even outright ignorant, seek to educate, not embarrass.

No soliciting allowed. Please do not use the Represent community as a place to post sales oriented posts for personal products or services. If you have a product or service that you think might be relevant to the group, add it here.

Protect your privacy. Currently, all posts and comments shared within this community are visible to anyone here. (We are working on a solution for private collaboration in smaller groups and hope to roll that out in the next few weeks.) We can discourage but we cannot prevent other members from sharing externally - keep that in mind before posting anything you might not be comfortable sharing publicly.
- Don't post personal information such as full name, email address, phone number, and address.
- Don't post evidence of yourself breaking the law even if that law is inane or immoral.

Respect others' privacy. In order to make this a safe space for our members and respect the dignity of all people, we ask that members protect the privacy of other members and their fellow human beings. Members of this community come from vastly different situations. For some, privacy violations could even put them at risk of harm.
- Never post someone else's personal information to the community (whether or not that person is a member of the community). Public posts or comments that contain personal information about anyone other than the author are subject to removal.
- Don't share things that others have posted inside the community on other sites without their explicit permission.

Respect property. In the process of supporting our members in developing their content and ideas, we do our best to teach them how to protect it, but there is very little we can do to protect it ourselves. Learn more about intellectual property and how to protect it.
- Don't post other people's content and ideas as if they are your own. If you share someone else's content or ideas, attribute them (whether or not they are copyrighted). Copyrighted material that is posted without consent or attribution is subject to removal.
- Don't take other people's content and ideas. Members may post content and ideas here because they are looking for feedback and collaborators, or simply because they want to share. This does not give anyone else license to use these elements of these in their work.
- Be aware that other people's content and ideas may resemble yours by sheer coincidence. Similarities between your work and someone else's may not be the result of plagiarism, even if your work was posted in the community first.
- Be aware that it is difficult to prove and protect ownership of ideas. Read our guidelines on posting and protecting your property before sharing your work.

Content Guidelines

We are here for authentic representation and genuine creative expression. As such we hope not to have to remove content, but we reserve the right to if we discover any content that we believes promotes or may incite violence, hatred, degradation, or exploitation.

According to our zero tolerance policy, the following are strictly prohibited:

personal attacks against others, whether or not they are Represent members;
bullying, intimidation, or harassment of others, whether or not they are Represent members;
defamatory or false statements about others, whether or not they are Represent members;
threats of any kind against others, whether or not they are Represent members;
degrading, abusive, or hateful speech.

However, you may choose to share content that depicts behavior from the list above. This is acceptable as long as the content does not promote or incite said behavior.

Sexual Content

At the moment, we have no policies specific to sexual content, but bear in mind that sexual content falls under the same restrictions as everything else: you may post content that depicts sexual situations but that content must not promote or incite violence, hatred, degradation, or exploitation. That means we reserve the right to remove content on the basis of its depiction of sexual situations if we deem that depiction to be in violation of our content guidelines.

Difficult Topics

The community is blanketed by a big trigger warning. Authentic expression sometimes comes discomfort and unpleasantness. If you are posting something that you think might be particularly triggering, consider disclosing that up front. If you are reading or viewing a post from another member that you think might be particularly triggering, you may add a warning in the comments.

All that said, a successful career in entertainment, media, or advertising requires being exposed to challenging stories. While should always respect yourself, understand your boundaries, and reject work that degrades anyone’s human dignity. We encourage you to push beyond your comfort zone, both as a creator of content and as a consumer of content. Learning, growing, and progressing are inherently uncomfortable at times.

Conversation Guidelines

This community works best when everyone feels welcome to participate and the participation is productive. We’re all here to share and learn from each other, be respectful and courteous to other people’s thoughts and ideas. Positivity and encouragement go a long way!

Staying on Topic

We strongly encourage you to join conversations that you find relevant, interesting, or feel you might be able to offer unique insight on the topic. We ask that you do your best to prevent conversations from being derailed. If you would like to address something tangentially related to a conversation, start a new thread and link to it in the original discussion. If someone is trying to change the subject on a thread, politely suggest that they start a new thread and link to it. Be patient with each other, changing the subject can be annoying but it isn't usually willful or malicious.

Giving and Receiving Feedback

Graciously giving and receiving feedback is vital to almost any creative career. Our Feedback Forum is a great place to practice these skills, and learn from each other's work and input. Before participating in the Feedback Forum, either as a giver or receiver of feedback, be sure to check in with your intentions and emotional state.

Whether giving or receiving feedback, be open, constructive, and professional. Be specific in your asks and your offerings. Contribute in good faith. Be honest but not rude. Be prepared to hear things you don't like. Resist the urge to get defensive. Never use feedback as a weapon.

Read the Feedback Forum guidelines.

Violations & Reporting

If you find content or behavior that you feel violates these guidelines, please report it. All community posts and comments, except those created by REPRESENT admins, can be reported by clicking the icon at the top right of the post and selecting "Report" from the dropdown. If you do not see the "Report" option or would like to report a pattern of behavior, please collect the URL and/or a screenshot of the content or incident and submit it via the contact form. You will never be exposed or retaliated against for reporting content or another member.

Posts and content that are found to have violated these guidelines, or be otherwise unreasonably disruptive to the community, may be deleted. A member that is found to have violated these guidelines, or be otherwise disruptive to the community, may be banned.

We reserve the right to remove content and members for reasons other than those explicitly listed here, in the Terms of Use, or elsewhere on the site.