Usage Guideline

You may come into audio and video contact with our teachers and other users while using our Service. Our guidelines are meant to build a mutual understanding of what being a part of this community is all about. We will take action if any of these guidelines are not upheld, so please read carefully.

Always Be Respectful

We come together from across the world at varying language levels with the same goal in mind - to learn. Curiosity, questioning, and cultural understanding are something we celebrate. Be respectful of others and where they’re coming from.

Help and Support Across all Skill Levels

We are all in this together. Learning a language is hard and takes a lot of courage and dedication. If someone uses incorrect grammar or has a question you think has an obvious answer, kindly and calmly help them out. Heckling and being straight up mean does not help anyone learn. 

Embrace and Share Regional Language Differences

A language can have many words, accents and ways to say the same thing. We think that’s one of the wonders of languages. Approach these conversations with an open mind and attitude.

Think Before You Share

We care about your safety. Speaking another language is inherently social, but please beware of swapping or posting any private information that could be misused by others. This includes your phone number, age, address, what time you’ll be at home, school name, email, or other personal information that could put your privacy at risk. Simply put: do not over-share. Sharing and encouraging others to share personal data might possibly get your account removed.

PLEASE DO NOT...

Attack Others with Words and Actions

STI Chinese is a safe place for learners of all backgrounds. Harassment and hurtful content will not be tolerated. Using symbols, names and text that promote hate—as well as harassing, stalking, impersonating, and making sexual remarks towards someone—are considered abuse. The same goes for nudity and disturbing profile pictures and usernames. As stated in the terms, we reserve the right to replace images or remove these accounts at our sole discretion. Rule of thumb: if you are making someone feel attacked or hurt, then you should not be doing it. We take these reports seriously and may delete your account without prior notice if such activity is verified by our team.

Spam Online Live Classes

Leaving a trail of irrelevant, abusive, illegal, or nonsensical entries during online live classes or anywhere on STI Chinese may get your account deleted. This includes any type of spamming.

It is okay to share external resources and links, but just like with copyrighted and pirated materials, you should know that spamming, referral code hocking, advertising, and excessively promoting other products/services is not acceptable and such references can be removed without warning.

Script or Cheat Maliciously

We believe in honest learning. If you are scripting for the purposes of cheating or sharing information and instructions about using STI Chinese in a way that may impact the system, community, learning, data or experience in a negative or significant manner, your account may be removed.

Write Inflammatory Comments

Hateful, obscene and off-topic comments do not contribute to learning. Cursing and swearing does not either (let people discover those words in the wild). Please leave them out of the language discussions.

In Summary

We do not tolerate content that are:

• Illegal
• Pornographic
• Excessively profane or violent
• Spam
• Threatening, harassing, or bullying
• Associated with racism or intolerance
• Impersonating someone in a misleading or deceptive manner
• Personal confidential information

Please do not waste your time looking for loopholes to this Usage Guidelines. We will not hesitate to remove any content that violates the spirit of these guidelines, and you will risk losing partial or full access to STI Chinese without warning. By following these guidelines, we will all contribute to a vibrant and helpful learning community for all.