Cutline is a study space you share with your classmates. These few rules keep it kind, honest and useful. They apply everywhere in Cutline: friends and messages, group chats, paper rooms, the Library, your page, comments on questions, and the Cutline Discord.
Be kind
Talk to classmates the way you would in person. Disagree with an idea, not the person. No harassment, bullying, threats or pile-ons, and no slurs or hate about anyone's race, ethnicity, religion, gender, sexuality, disability or background.
Keep it study friendly
Social exists so you can study together. Keep rooms, groups and comments about the work, and take a long off-topic chat to messages or Discord. A quick hello and a bit of fun are welcome. Drowning out people who are trying to study is not.
Academic integrity
Never share live test or exam content. That means no questions, answers, screenshots or from-memory reconstructions from a test that is running or that other students have not sat yet.
Cutline questions, explanations, guides and cheat sheets are Cutline content. Do not copy them out, post them elsewhere or sell them as notes. Your own notes are yours.
Do not use Cutline to cheat during any assessment, and do not help anyone else to. Your university's academic integrity rules apply to you as a student, and we will not be the reason you fall foul of them.
Privacy
Do not share anyone's personal details: a full name they have not shared themselves, phone numbers, addresses, timetables, grades or health information. Do not post screenshots of messages or group chats unless everyone in them agrees. Keep other people's faces out of your banner unless they said yes.
No spam or ads
No selling, promoting, recruiting or link dropping, and no repeated or chain messages. Do not message people who have not asked to hear from you. Tutoring offers and other services need our permission first: email [email protected].
Safe content
Nothing sexual, nothing graphic for the sake of it, and nothing that promotes self harm, eating disorders, drugs or violence. Nothing illegal. Medical content in study material is fine. Content meant to shock is not.
Your page
Your banner, bio and pinned song are yours, within these rules. A banner is a photo you have the right to use and that a classmate could see over your shoulder. A bio has no contact details or offers for hire. Pin a song you would happily play in the Library.
Report and block
To report someone, open More on their page, in a chat or on a comment, tap Report and choose a reason. We never name who reported, though in a one to one chat the other person may guess, so block them too if you need space. To block, use the same menu: blocking hides you from each other everywhere in Cutline, and your list lives in Settings under Blocked. For anything you cannot report in the app, write to us from Help or email [email protected].
What Cutline does
We read every report, and we check for new ones every day. Depending on what happened we remove the content, warn the person, or suspend or end their account, as the Terms of Service allow. Serious harm or anything illegal may be passed to the university or the police where the law requires it. Where we reasonably can, we tell you what we did and why.
Complaints about harmful content
If something posted in a room, a group, a comment or on someone's page harms you, you can ask us to take it down. Use Report on it, choose Report harmful content in Help, or email [email protected]. Say where it is and what is wrong. We record when each complaint arrives.
Within 48 hours we pass your complaint to the person who posted it, without your name unless you say we can. They have 48 hours to reply. If they agree, do not reply or cannot be reached, we take it down. If they object, we leave it up, tell you, and you can ask Netsafe for help. Content that breaks these guidelines can still come down under What Cutline does above.
Private messages are not part of this process. Report the message and block the person.
Look after yourself
Study is stressful and you are not alone in that. Otago students can use Student Health and the university's student support services. Free, any time: call or text 1737 to talk with a trained counsellor. In an emergency call 111.
Age
You must be at least 13 to use Cutline, and if you are under 18 you need a parent or guardian's permission, as the Terms say. In Social, under 18 gets safer defaults: only friends can message you, and you stay hidden from Online until you turn it on. How long messages are kept is in the privacy policy.
These guidelines and the Terms
These guidelines sit under the Community Conduct clause of the Terms of Service. If the two ever disagree, the Terms win. We will update this page as Cutline grows, and the date at the top says when it last changed.