Community Guidelines

1. The spirit of the thing

Sign-out is a celebration. On a real shirt, people write inside jokes, nicknames, prayers, and things that only make sense to one cohort. All of that belongs here. We are not trying to sand the personality off it.

The one test that matters: this is the graduate's keepsake, not your post. It gets shared to their family, their church, their aunties and eventually an employer. Write the thing that still reads well in that room.

2. Signing someone's shirt well

• Use a name they will recognise. "Chidi from 300L Physics" beats "anon".
• Say something specific. The messages people keep are the ones that name a moment.
• Keep other people's business off it. A joke about a third person on a public page is a joke that follows them too.
• Leave room. It is a shirt, and there are a hundred more people who want to sign it.

3. What is not allowed

We remove any of the following, whether it is in a message, a name, a drawing or an upload:

Abuse and harassment

• Insults, humiliation, or messages aimed at making someone feel unsafe.
• Repeated unwanted contact through signatures after being asked to stop.
• Threats of violence, of any kind, to anyone.
• Encouraging others to pile on to a person or a page.

Hate

• Attacks based on ethnicity, state or region of origin, religion, gender, disability or sexuality.
• Slurs, including ones used casually on campus. "It is just how we talk" is not an exception.

Sexual content

• Explicit sexual content, or sexual comments about someone's body.
• Anything sexual involving a minor, in any form. This is reported to the authorities and the account is closed permanently and immediately.

Impersonation and deception

• Pretending to be someone else: a classmate, a lecturer, a public figure, a brand.
• Creating a page for someone who has not asked for one.
• Using a photograph that is not yours.

Private information

• Phone numbers, addresses, matriculation numbers, bank details, or anything else that identifies where a person can be found, theirs or anyone else's.
• Screenshots of private conversations.

Spam and promotion

• Advertising, links to unrelated services, referral codes for other platforms.
• Repeating the same message across many pages.
• Recruitment into schemes, betting, forex "mentorship", or anything promising returns.

Illegal and harmful

• Anything encouraging self-harm, suicide, or eating disorders.
• Drugs, weapons, stolen goods, or fraud.
• Content that infringes someone else's copyright or trademark.

4. Rules for your own page

If the page is yours:

• It must be you: your name, your photograph, your institution, your set.
• Do not present it as a fundraiser. No targets, no appeals, no "help me pay my fees". See the Gifts Policy for why.
• Do not gift yourself, or arrange for someone to gift you on your behalf, to make the page look busier than it is.
• Do not use your tagline or handle to advertise something, or to attack another person.
• Do not claim an institution, award or class of degree you do not hold. It is on a public page with your face on it.

5. What the graduate controls

On your own page, you can:

• Hide any signature, at any time, without giving a reason. It disappears from public view and from your reveal export.
• Report a signature to us if it needs more than hiding.
• Pause your page: it goes private, and your money is untouched.
• Turn off the public feed and the Explore gallery. They are separate switches.

Hiding a signature does not refund the person who paid, and we tell them that before they pay. Your keepsake is yours; paying does not buy a permanent place on it.

6. Reporting something

Every signature and every page has a report option. Use it for anything in section 3, or for a page impersonating someone.

You do not need an account to report, and you do not need to be the graduate. If you are a bystander who saw something on a friend's page, report it.

For anything urgent (a threat, a page sexualising a minor, an account you think has been taken over), email safety@usemacad.com and put URGENT in the subject. That reaches a person directly rather than a queue.

If someone is in immediate danger, contact the police or emergency services first. We are a website; they are not.

7. What we do about reports

We filter messages for obvious abuse before they appear, but a filter catches wording, not meaning, and it will always miss things. Reports are how we find the rest.

When a report comes in:

1. We look at it. A person, not only a system, for anything beyond obvious spam.
2. Urgent categories jump the queue: threats, content involving minors, and impersonation on a page collecting money.
3. We act. Removing the content, freezing payouts, taking the page down, or closing the account.
4. We tell the graduate what happened on their page, and why. A page that goes down without an explanation is indistinguishable from a page that broke.

A page confirmed as impersonation has its payouts frozen and is taken down within 24 hours.

8. Consequences

What happens depends on what was done and whether it has happened before:

Where money is involved, a hold is not a punishment and it is not permanent. It stops funds moving while we look, and it is released if nothing is wrong.

9. If we get it wrong

We will sometimes remove something we should not have. If we have, email safety@usemacad.com with what was removed and why you think the decision is wrong.

Someone other than the person who made the original decision will look at it. We aim to come back within five business days. If we were wrong we restore the content and say so.

10. Staying safe

• Nobody from Macad will ever ask for your password, your BVN or a one-time code. Anyone who does is not us.
• Never send money to a graduate outside Macad because someone asked you to. If it did not go through the page, we cannot see it and we cannot help.
• Be careful with a link claiming to be someone's Macad page. Check it is on usemacad.com.
• Think before putting your matric number, hostel or phone number in a message. It is a public page.
• If a page is collecting money in your name and it is not yours, report it. Do not negotiate with whoever set it up.

11. Ambassadors

If you represent Macad on your campus, these guidelines apply to you and a bit more does too:

• Do not promise anyone a specific amount of money. Nobody can promise that.
• Do not create pages for other people, or with their details, to build your own numbers.
• Do not spam group chats, or post your code on pages that are not yours.
• Do not say you speak for Macad beyond promoting it. You are not our employee or agent, and you should not tell anyone you are.
• Do not present the programme as a job or an investment to the people you are recruiting.

Breaking these ends your place in the programme, and rewards not yet sent may be withheld. The full terms are in the Terms of Service.