The forum should be a helpful and respectful place for everyone. By using the forum you agree to these rules. They apply equally to posts under your name and to anonymous posts. New questions and every anonymous post appear after an admin has approved them.
The following are not allowed
- Disrespectful behaviour: Insulting, threatening, harassing or bullying others, or deliberately putting other people down.
- Discrimination and hate: Insulting or demeaning people because of their origin, ethnicity, nationality, religion or beliefs, or because of their gender, sexual orientation, disability or age.
- Advertising: Advertising of any kind, especially for products, services, companies, channels or other organisations, unless the board has approved it in advance.
- Spam: Repeated or empty posts, the same post sent many times, and chain messages.
- Knowingly wrong advice: Advice or information that the author knows, or obviously should know, is false, especially about visas, residence, studies, exams, money or housing. Honest mistakes are not a violation.
- Attacks on the website: Attempts to attack, get around or disrupt the website or its security measures, for example hacking, automated mass requests or exploiting bugs. Creating extra accounts to get around a suspension is also forbidden.
- Unlisted events: Invitations to parties or other events that are not published in the events section of this website.
- Illegal content: Content that breaks the law, for example incitement to hatred, calls for violence, copyright infringement, or pornographic or violence-glorifying content.
- Other people’s personal data: Publishing names, contact details, photos or other personal information of other people without their permission. This includes trying to uncover the identity of anonymous authors.
- Impersonation: Pretending to be another person, TSG, or a representative of another organisation.
- Misusing the anonymous feature: Using the anonymous feature to get around these rules.
Reporting
Moderators review posts. If you see a post that breaks these rules, use “Report post” under it, write to kommunikation@tsg.rwth-aachen.de or use the contact form.
Consequences
Minor violations lead to phased bans from the forum: 1 day, then 3 days, then 1 week, and after that a permanent ban. Earlier phases always count. Depending on how serious a violation is, we can instead issue a warning, remove the post, suspend you from anonymous posting or the whole forum for up to 2 years, ban you permanently, or delete the account and block its email address for 2 years. You can see every measure and its reason in your profile (Art. 17 Digital Services Act).
Anonymous posts
Anonymous questions and replies are published only after an admin approves them. When a post is published, the link to your account is deleted for good; TSG stores no IP addresses. From then on nobody, including TSG, can trace the post back to you, so you can no longer edit or delete it yourself, and sanctions can only be tied to posts under your name or to anonymous posts that are still waiting for approval. Moderators can still remove published posts that break the rules.
Appeals
You can appeal any measure within 14 days by emailing kommunikation@tsg.rwth-aachen.de. A board member who was not involved in the original decision reviews the appeal and usually replies within 4 weeks.
Changes
We may update these rules. If the changes are significant, you will be asked to confirm them again before your next post.
Last updated: September 2026