Forum Rules and Acceptable Use

Version. 1.0

Effective from. Monday 31 August 2026

Review. Annually.

Published at. bonsai.law/circle/forum-rules

1. What the forum is

A members-only, moderated forum on Bonsai Circle infrastructure at bonsai.law/circle/forum. It is the only Circle-branded group communication venue between meetings. It is not indexed by search engines.

Four boards, no more:

1. Referrals. Opportunities and requests.

2. Problems. A professional question you want the room's thinking on, in Chatham House terms.

3. Recommendations. Supplier and service recommendations, evergreen.

4. Circle News. Founders to members. Members can react, not post.

2. Who can use it

Current members only, signed in via single sign-on from the member area. No delegated access. No shared accounts.

3. How moderation works

Moderation is by member report. Posts, edits and direct messages on the Circle platform are published immediately and are not read by the founders before publication or delivery. The founders review content on the platform when a member reports it.

How to report. Use the flag button on the post or direct message. Add a one-line note if you wish. Your report goes to the founders' queue.

What the founders do. The founders open the flagged item, decide, and record the decision with a short reason. Decisions are made within 24 working hours; safeguarding-adjacent items are acted on immediately. The founder decision is one of:

• Leave in place. No rule-based reason to act.
• Edit and republish. Small correction (typo, redaction of a client-identifying phrase). The change is visible to the poster with a note; the poster may object.
• Redact. Content replaced with "Redacted by moderator, [date]". Underlying record retained on the moderation audit log.
• Remove. Content removed from the visible board or thread. Audit log entry retained.
• Escalate. Refer the matter into the full concerns process under the Complaints, Concerns and Removal Procedure.

The poster is told. The founder decision and its reason are notified to the poster on the platform and by email.

Appeal. A founder decision to edit, redact, remove or escalate is one-click appealable by the poster. Appeals are decided by the founder who did not make the original decision.

What the founders do not do. The founders do not read every post. They do not routinely monitor threads. They do not sample content. They respond to member reports.

Automated pre-publication screening is planned for a future release. When we introduce it we will publish an Automated Decision-Making Disclosure and update these rules.

4. What you may post

• Genuine professional referrals within your competence.
• Professional problems, in hypothetical form where they touch clients, that you want the room's thinking on.
• Considered recommendations of suppliers or services you have actually used.
• Responses to any of the above that add professional value.

5. What you must not post

Non-exhaustive.

• Anything that breaches the Confidentiality Regime.
• Client-identifying information without express client consent.
• Legal, tax, medical or other regulated advice to a specific real person without complying with your own regulator's rules.
• Solicitations of investment, unless we have opened a specific structured pitch slot for that purpose.
• Commissioned content - posts where you have been paid, in cash or in kind, to say what you are saying, unless disclosed.
• Unsolicited sales pitches sent by direct message. A direct message asking a member to buy your services is marketing spam and is not permitted. Referrals raised on the Referrals board are the correct route.
• Group-messaging workarounds. Copying the same message to several members individually to reach a group is a breach of the no-group-DM rule.
• Grooming a member off-platform. A direct message that asks a member to move a Circle-related conversation to WhatsApp, Signal, personal email or any other off-platform channel is a breach of the confidentiality regime.
• Marketing spam. Repeated posting to promote your own services outside genuine referrals and recommendations.
• Discriminatory content contrary to the Equality Act 2010.
• Personal attacks or bullying.
• Content that would embarrass a member if leaked - apply the "regulator reading over your shoulder" test.
• Copyright infringement.
• Material that is unlawful, defamatory or in breach of a court order or non-disclosure agreement to which you are subject.
• Political or party-political campaigning, save for content directly relevant to a member's professional work.
• Off-topic content unrelated to the professional purpose of the Circle.
• Automated content, bots, or crawlers. The forum is for people. Do not use an AI system to post on your behalf, save that ordinary drafting help is fine - you are responsible for what you post.

6. Direct messages

The Circle provides a native member-to-member direct-message function. It is on-platform, watermarked, and visible to the founders.

Format and limits.

• One direct-message channel per pair of members. You cannot open a second channel with the same person.
• Text only. Attachments, images, embedded video, executable content and links to off-platform private messaging channels are not permitted.
• Fair use: up to five new direct-message conversations per calendar week. The limit resets weekly on Monday 00:00 UK time. Continuing existing conversations does not count against the limit.
• No group DMs. If you want to discuss a topic with more than one member, use the Problems or Referrals board.
• No presence indicators, typing indicators, or read receipts. You will not know when a recipient is online or reading your message. This is deliberate.

Moderation.

Direct messages are moderated on member report on the same basis as forum posts. Recipients and senders can flag a direct message for founder review using the flag button on the message. Founders review flagged direct messages and decide on the same options as for posts (leave in place, edit, redact, remove, escalate). The founders do not read direct messages that no one has reported. Automated pre-publication screening of direct messages is planned for a future release.

What direct messages are for, and what they are not for.

Direct messages are for Circle-adjacent professional conversation between two members: introductions, follow-ups on Referrals and Problems threads, one-to-one professional questions. They are not private correspondence. They are not an alternative to your own regulated communication systems for client business. They are not a shortcut around the confidentiality regime or the moderation regime.

You cannot delete a message you have sent.

If you regret a message, or a message sent to you should not remain on the platform, use the flag-to-founders function on the message. The founders will decide whether to redact the message. The decision and its reason are logged. Redaction is the only route to removal.

Composer copy.

Above the send button on every direct-message composer, the platform displays: "This message will be visible to the founders. It stays on the Circle for 7 years."

Tooltip copy.

On the "Message" button in the directory and on member profiles, the platform displays: "All Circle messages are watermarked and visible to the founders. Held for 7 years. Text only, no attachments. Chatham House applies between members. Moderation applies to everyone."

On leaving.

When a member leaves the Circle, direct-message threads to which they were a party are retained on the schedule in section 7. Their name in the thread updates to "Former member" or "Removed". The other party can read the history but cannot send new messages to the former member's account.

7. Retention and destruction

• Referrals archived at 30 days, destroyed at 90 days.
• Problems archived at 60 days, destroyed at 12 months.
• Recommendations evergreen, reviewed annually.
• Circle News retained for the life of the Circle.
• Direct messages retained for seven years from the date of the last message in the thread. The Retention Schedule explains why this window differs from the forum-post windows above.
• Meeting attendance records retained for seven years from the meeting date.
• Moderation audit log retained three years.
• On your exit, your posts, direct messages and attendance records are retained on the schedule above. Your name in posts and direct-message threads is updated to "Former member" or "Removed". Full erasure is available on request, subject to the carve-outs in the Privacy Notice.

8. Reporting a post

Every post carries a report button. Reports go to the moderator queue and are treated as human-review items with priority over routine flags. Reports are not anonymous to the moderators but are anonymous to the poster.

9. Enforcement

Breaches are handled proportionately:

10. Appeals

Any moderation decision may be appealed by one-click on the notice you receive, or by email to bonsai.circle@bonsai.law with subject line "Moderation appeal". Appeals are decided by the founder who did not make the original decision. Where both founders were involved in the original decision, the appeal is decided by both founders sitting jointly in an appeal capacity, on the papers, with written reasons. Where the appeal concerns the conduct of one founder, that founder recuses and the other founder decides alone. The full appeals framework is set out in the Complaints, Concerns and Removal Procedure.

11. Related documents

• Terms of Membership
• Confidentiality Regime
• Code of Conduct
• Automated Decision-Making Disclosure
• Complaints, Concerns and Removal Procedure
• Moderation Standard Operating Procedure