The Rules.
Six of them. Written in English rather than in the language of a terms-of-service document, because a rule nobody can read is a rule nobody can follow.
The six.
These are the whole rulebook. There is no appendix.
One. Be civil about how other people farm.
The single most common removal is one member being unpleasant to another about their system. Organic, conventional, regenerative, no-till, plough-every-year: argue about the method as hard as you like and leave the person out of it.
Two. This is not a marketplace.
No selling, no touting, no affiliate links. Only Farmers exists for that and it is a better place to do it. Forty-four removals in twelve months were people trying anyway.
Three. Agricultural policy yes, party politics no.
Subsidy schemes, planning, inheritance tax on farmland, trade deals: all fair game and all discussed at length. Campaigning for a party is not, and the line is enforced without regard to which party.
Four. Other people’s information is theirs.
No addresses, no phone numbers, no photographs of anybody who did not agree to be photographed. This includes photographs taken at a meet, which catches people out more than anything else.
Five. Do not post things that could get somebody sued.
Unproven allegations about a named business get removed on sight. Not because we doubt you — because the person who would be sued is the person who has to defend it.
Six. The warden’s call stands until it is appealed.
Wardens can hide a post. Anything above that goes to an estate moderator. An appeal goes to a different person from the one who made the decision, always.
How enforcement actually runs.
Process
- Who reports
- Any memberOne tap, no form, no reason required.
- Who decides
- A personA spam filter catches obvious junk. Removals are human decisions.
- Median time to decision
- 4 hours 20 minutesFrom report to outcome, twelve months to 31 July 2026.
- Slowest decision
- 3 daysA defamation question that needed somebody to read carefully.
- Appeals
- 22 raised, 6 upheldHeard by somebody other than the original decision-maker.
Consequences
- First removal
- A message explaining whyNot a strike, not a warning, an explanation.
- Repeated
- Posting paused for 7 days19 accounts in twelve months.
- Serious or persistent
- Account closed4 accounts in twelve months.
- Immediate closure
- Threats, or content involving childrenNo warning, no appeal window, reported onward.
Twelve months of moderation, by category.
| Removed for | Count | Share of all posts |
|---|---|---|
| Abuse or personal attacks | 61 | 0.15% |
| Selling and spam | 44 | 0.11% |
| Party politics | 28 | 0.07% |
| Someone else’s private information | 17 | 0.04% |
| Legal risk | 11 | 0.03% |
| Everything else | 7 | 0.02% |
| Total | 168 | 0.40% |
Why the rules are short.
A long rulebook is a defensive document. It exists so that when something goes wrong, somebody can point at a clause and say the matter was covered. It is written for the organisation, not for the people who have to live inside it.
Six rules fit on a page and can be held in a head. Every one of them describes a behaviour rather than a category, which means a warden standing in a village hall can apply them without a consultation.
The cost of short rules is that edge cases need judgement. We would rather have judgement, exercised by a named person and appealable to a different one, than a clause for every eventuality and nobody accountable for any of them.
A rulebook long enough to cover everything is a rulebook nobody has read.
Where the law sits on top of this.
These rules are ours. The Online Safety Act 2023, the Equality Act 2010 and the ordinary law of defamation sit above them and are not negotiable by anybody here, including us.
Six rules
And no appendix.
Decided by people
A filter catches spam; a person makes every removal.
Median 4h 20m
Report to outcome, twelve months.
Published quarterly
Every number on this page, in the open.
The removals, in full.
Every one of the hundred and sixty-eight, by category, with what it was.
