A community should be something people genuinely enjoy being part of. It should be fun, relaxed, welcoming, and built around a shared interest without becoming more complicated than the reason people came together in the first place.
That is what these community guidelines are here to protect.
There are no unwritten social rules to learn, no community politics to navigate, and no different set of expectations for certain people. The same guidelines apply whether you are joining us for the first time or have been here for years.
The purpose of moderation is not to control the community, but to preserve the kind of community people want to be part of. These guidelines give members and moderators the same expectations to work from.
When moderation becomes necessary, it often involves people who are still relatively new to the community and whose relationships within it have not yet had time to develop. Most simply move on when removed; a rare few respond by escalating.
For those buying a used ONYX or modifying an ONYX with aftermarket parts, we also maintain a Buying Used Guide and Aftermarket Caution with information worth reviewing.
The guidelines below explain how we approach participation, relationships, safety, access, and moderation within the community.
Moderation Follows the Guidelines
Multiple moderators use these guidelines as a shared reference. They provide a consistent framework for separating personal reactions from observable behavior and making decisions together.
Decisions are based on behavior, available context, severity, and relevant patterns, not popularity, reputation, community standing, or whether a moderator personally likes or dislikes someone.
A report or complaint provides information for moderators to consider; it does not by itself establish what happened. Moderation does not require resolving every personal disagreement or determining who was right about every detail. Moderation should not be used as a tool for retaliation, leverage, or continuing a personal dispute.
Not every mistake requires a consequence. A misunderstanding can remain a misunderstanding, and some situations require no moderation at all. Other situations may call for a conversation, clarification, warning, limitation of participation, temporary removal, permanent removal, or a decision not to extend additional access. These are possible responses, not required sequential steps. Serious conduct does not require prior warnings before action is taken.
Questions and disagreement are allowed, and additional context is welcome. Meaningful new information can be considered without guaranteeing a different outcome. Moderators may also be unable to share private information about other people or every detail considered in a decision.
Criticism or disagreement is different from harassment, retaliation, applying public or outside pressure, or attempting to circumvent a decision. Pressure, retaliation, or circumvention can itself become a community issue.
The guidelines apply to moderators too. Concerns involving a moderator can be brought to another moderator. When practical, a moderator personally involved in a dispute should allow another moderator to review it.
Moderators are community members too and are entitled to reasonable boundaries around their time, attention, and participation. Moderation does not create an obligation for unlimited discussion, repeated explanations, or continued engagement after a matter has been reasonably addressed. When appropriate, a moderator may step away and allow another moderator to handle a situation.
The purpose of these guidelines is not to eliminate judgment. It is to give community members and moderators the same behavioral standards to work from.
Look at Patterns, Not Personalities
These guidelines are about behavior, not deciding whether someone is a good or bad person. Familiarity, popularity, reputation, or length of participation should not replace looking at the behavior itself.
One awkward interaction does not define someone. One recommendation does not make someone a salesperson. One disagreement does not make someone disruptive. Being friendly, enthusiastic, quiet, outgoing, opinionated, unfamiliar, or different is not a violation.
Repeated behavior is different. Repeatedly ignoring boundaries, steering people toward undisclosed interests, pushing for access that has not been extended, creating obligation, systematically recruiting or redirecting members, amplifying conflict, or attempting to circumvent decisions can establish a pattern that needs attention. Serious conduct does not have to be repeated before it matters.
Give people the benefit of the doubt without requiring anyone to ignore repeated behavior. Giving someone the benefit of the doubt does not require anyone to disregard their own experience, reasonable judgment, or behavior they have directly observed. It also does not require treating every repeated incident as though nothing came before it. Past behavior can provide context for a current pattern without becoming a permanent judgment about the person.
People can change, and sustained improvement should be recognized. Appropriate behavior in one interaction or setting does not automatically establish that a broader pattern has changed, just as earlier behavior should not become a permanent label when sustained change is demonstrated.
The goal is not to label people. It is to recognize when behavior is affecting other people or the community without turning that behavior into someone’s identity.
First Impressions Matter
First impressions matter to everyone in the community. When someone barely known to the community immediately shares serious personal problems, grievances, repeated conflicts, or stories of harmful behavior, that does not mean familiarity or trust has been established. People may genuinely like each other and immediately get along, but a few rides or conversations still do not mean they know each other, and others may reasonably recognize when a relationship is moving faster than the familiarity behind it.
Stories about problems with groups, other communities, former friends, relationships, substance use, manipulation, retaliation, dishonesty, boundary violations, or conflicts involving many different people are one person’s account. They do not establish what happened or who was responsible, regardless of how many community members hear the same account.
Community members do not become someone’s counselor, confidant, mediator, or source of validation because that person chose to disclose these things. Feeling sympathy, guilt, or concern does not create an obligation to take responsibility for someone barely known to the community.
What someone shares can become relevant when similar behavior or patterns are later observed by members of the community.
Warning someone about harmful behavior does not excuse that behavior later. Disclosure is not accountability, and it does not transfer responsibility to anyone who was warned.
Respect People and Their Boundaries
Respect the boundaries people set. Sharing rides, conversations, activities, chats, or other community spaces does not create an obligation for additional attention, access, information, or contact.
Harassment, threats, intimidation, unwanted attention, persistent contact, or repeatedly ignoring a boundary are not acceptable. If someone declines an invitation, ends a conversation, does not want to share something, asks for space, or simply says no, respect that decision.
A boundary does not require an explanation, agreement, or justification before it deserves respect. Disappointment, confusion, or disagreement does not create permission to keep asking, apply pressure, involve other community members, or find another way around the boundary.
People will occasionally misunderstand each other or overstep without realizing it. That alone does not establish a pattern or make the interaction a community issue. What matters is what happens once the boundary is clear: recognize it, adjust, and move forward.
How people respond to boundaries is also visible to the community. Accepting a boundary and moving forward is different from becoming persistent, angry, or retaliatory when the answer was not the one someone wanted.
Do Not Make Disagreements Personal
Misunderstandings and disagreements are normal. They are not, by themselves, a community problem.
Disagree with what someone said or did without attacking their character, assigning motives, insulting them, retaliating, or treating them differently in unrelated interactions because of the disagreement.
Someone does not have to participate in a personal conflict simply because another person has decided one exists. Do not deliberately communicate anger, disappointment, or an unspecified grievance while withholding the issue and expecting someone else to chase an explanation, seek reassurance, or repair something they cannot identify.
Community members should not be used as messengers, intermediaries, investigators, or a source of social pressure. Hearing one side of a disagreement does not create an obligation to investigate, take sides, or become involved.
The same principles apply when someone outside the community becomes involved. Do not use someone’s reputation, employment, business or brand associations, or other outside connections as leverage in an unrelated community dispute. Threatening to involve or involving outside parties to create pressure or retaliation is different from making a legitimate report about conduct genuinely relevant to that outside party.
Someone is still free to be upset, decline a conversation, ask for space, or choose not to explain themselves. Disengaging is different from repeatedly making sure someone knows there is an unexplained grievance.
Address what happened when appropriate, or leave it alone and move forward. Do not turn a disagreement into a campaign against another person or a problem for everyone around them.
Respect Privacy
People decide what they share, who they share it with, and what remains private. Sharing personal information with one person or several people does not automatically make it public information.
Do not distribute someone’s personal information, contact information, location, personal circumstances, private conversations, messages, screenshots, photos, or other sensitive information without their permission. Information shared in one conversation, chat, group, ride, activity, or other community space does not automatically belong everywhere else.
Access to information does not create permission to distribute it. Receiving private information from someone who was not authorized to share it does not create permission to pass it along. Information does not become less deserving of privacy simply because more people have heard it.
Respect for privacy does not prevent someone from bringing relevant information to moderators, seeking appropriate help, reporting threats, or addressing a legitimate community or safety concern. Privacy should not be used to prevent someone from appropriately addressing conduct that affects them or the community.
Do Not Use Information as Leverage
Information learned through the community should not become social currency or ammunition. Knowing more about someone does not create greater entitlement to their trust, access, attention, or participation.
Do not fish for personal information, gossip about members, repeatedly investigate who knows whom, or collect details about people’s private lives. Do not ask different community members for information someone has chosen not to provide or put others in the position of supplying it. Naturally learning something about someone is different from deliberately assembling information about them.
Sharing something personal does not automatically create trust or require someone else to share something in return. Personal disclosure should not be used to manufacture familiarity, create obligation, gain access, or influence how other community members respond to someone.
Information learned through trust, private conversation, ordinary participation, or vulnerability should not later be used as leverage or ammunition. Information appropriate in one context does not automatically become appropriate to use in another. The same applies to old disagreements that were already addressed and resolved.
Information about people should not be collected or used to manufacture trust, gain access, create obligation, influence other members, or acquire social advantage within the community.
Let Relationships Develop Naturally
The community creates opportunities for people to meet. What develops from there belongs to the people involved. The community does not determine what individual interactions should become.
Being part of the same community does not automatically create familiarity, trust, private access, attention, or an obligation from another person. Repeated positive interactions do not create entitlement to anything more.
Do not force familiarity, repeatedly pursue private conversations, pressure someone for personal information, or assume one kind of interaction creates access to another. Participation in one context does not automatically extend to another.
People can ride together without expecting additional interaction outside that context. Someone can answer a question without becoming a personal resource. People can be friendly, helpful, and enjoy each other’s company without creating an expectation that the connection must become something more.
Let familiarity develop naturally. Participation at one level does not create an obligation for anything more.
Participate in Good Faith
Participate because you genuinely want to be part of the community. Ask questions, share what you know, help people, learn, ride, join conversations and activities, and disagree when you disagree.
People can have outside interests and can naturally benefit from participating in the community. A single recommendation, invitation, introduction, or opportunity does not make participation improper. Incidental benefit is different from participation primarily organized around obtaining something from the community.
Do not use participation primarily to manufacture familiarity or trust, create conflict, collect information, build an audience, gain inappropriate access, influence other members, or take advantage of community members or community access. The community should not be treated primarily as a source of contacts, attention, customers, recruits, information, or other outside opportunities.
Outside interests are normal. When an outside interest materially affects someone’s participation, it should not be concealed from the people whose decisions or interactions it may influence.
Respect People’s Choices
Advice and recommendations are welcome. Strong recommendations and disagreement are normal. Pressure is not.
People make their own decisions about their bikes, parts, modifications, shops, services, purchases, riding styles, activities, who they ride with, and participation in other groups or communities.
Share your experience and explain what you recommend and why. Relevant safety concerns should be stated clearly when they exist. Asking for advice does not create an obligation to follow it, and providing advice does not create an obligation for someone else to accept it.
People are free to make their own choices about their bikes, batteries, parts, modifications, and equipment, but those choices do not require other people, hosts, organizers, or the community to accept risks they may create for people, property, shared spaces, or community activities. A reasonable safety restriction does not necessarily mean someone has done something wrong or is being disciplined.
Sharing a good experience, recommending an alternative, or explaining why you disagree are ordinary contributions. Repeatedly pushing the same recommendation after someone has made their decision, recruiting other community members to reinforce it, or turning an individual choice into an ongoing debate is different. New information may justify revisiting a recommendation; simply wanting a different decision does not.
Respecting someone’s choice does not require agreeing with it or accepting the consequences or risks it may create for others. Once people have the information they need, they are free to make their own decisions.
Keep Financial Interests Transparent
People buy, sell, trade, recommend products, use shops, provide services, and do business with one another. There is nothing inherently wrong with any of that. Business can naturally result from ordinary community participation.
Access to the community should not primarily be treated as a business opportunity. Do not participate primarily to find customers, generate leads, sell merchandise, promote services, collect referrals, build a monetized audience, generate content or traffic, or systematically turn community access or participation into financial opportunities.
Recommendations should be genuine. If a financial, employment, business, referral, compensation, discount, free product, sponsorship, affiliate, partnership, or other material relationship would reasonably change how someone understands a recommendation, disclose it. Having a material interest does not prevent someone from making a recommendation; it means the interest should be transparent.
Repeatedly recommending the same shop, business, product, aftermarket brand, service, or provider is not inherently a problem. It can become a community issue when repeated steering is connected to an undisclosed material interest or a pattern of using community access for personal financial benefit.
Members should be able to understand when a recommendation may also benefit the person making it. Advertising should not be disguised as advice.
Do Not Recruit or Poach
People are free to participate in other communities, ride with other groups, prefer other brands, shop wherever they want, follow other creators or channels, and participate in whatever activities they choose. Participation here is not exclusive, and the community does not own anyone’s attention or participation.
The issue is not where people choose to participate. Do not gain or use access to this community, its members, chats, activities, or private spaces as a recruiting pool for another community, group, business, organization, channel, audience, brand, or commercial interest.
Mentioning another group, recommending an outside resource, sharing an event, or inviting someone somewhere can be completely normal. Systematically contacting members, repeatedly redirecting people elsewhere, or gaining familiarity or access primarily for that purpose is different.
Community access should not be treated as a ready-made audience or recruiting list. People are free to go wherever they choose; that freedom does not make systematic recruitment through community access appropriate.
Do Not Create Obligation
Generosity should be generosity. Favors, gifts, discounts, information, technical help, introductions, access, rides, services, or other assistance do not automatically create a debt that can be collected later.
Providing something does not create an obligation for another community member to give loyalty, business, support, attention, access, introductions, continued communication, or another favor in return. Gratitude is not the same as obligation.
Voluntary reciprocation is normal. So are trades, paid services, conditional offers, and other exchanges when everyone understands the arrangement beforehand. The problem is presenting something as generosity and later attaching expectations that were never disclosed.
If something comes with conditions or an expected return, make that clear before the other person accepts it. Conditions belong before acceptance, not afterward.
Access Is Not an Entitlement
Some parts of the community require familiarity and trust before access is extended. Not every chat, group, activity, or private space has to be open to everyone who participates in the community.
Owning the product, attending activities, being introduced by another member, asking to participate, following the community guidelines, building familiarity, or having access to one part of the community does not automatically create access to another. Familiarity and trust can inform an access decision, but they do not create a qualification system or guarantee that access will eventually be extended. Another member’s access or support does not automatically extend to someone else. A person’s experience, knowledge, visibility, role, or standing in the community does not create an entitlement to their time, attention, private communication, or personal access.
Sometimes the answer may be “not yet,” and sometimes it may simply be “no.” Not being given access does not necessarily mean someone has done something wrong, and “not yet” does not guarantee access later. Access that has been extended also does not create an entitlement to permanent or continued access.
It is reasonable to ask why, provide relevant context, or disagree with an access decision. Being heard does not require the decision to change. Threats, repeated pressure, business connections, public pressure, other community members, or outside influence should not be used as leverage to force a different outcome.
How someone responds to an access decision matters. Attempting to pressure, retaliate, circumvent the decision, or apply outside pressure because the decision was maintained can itself become a community issue.
Contribute Without Creating Drama
Different opinions, criticism, questions, mistakes, humor, disagreement, and legitimate concerns are normal parts of a community. Raising a real problem is not creating drama.
Creating, amplifying, or unnecessarily prolonging conflict is different. Do not troll, bait people for reactions, deliberately provoke arguments, repeatedly derail conversations, broadcast the same grievance throughout the community, or continually pull unrelated members into an ongoing problem.
Not every problem needs an audience or community consensus. Other members should not have to continually navigate a conflict they were never part of. Raising an issue so it can be addressed is different from repeatedly expanding the issue into new conversations, people, and problems.
Some issues can be resolved directly and respectfully. Others are more appropriate to bring to a moderator. Direct confrontation is not a requirement, especially when someone is uncomfortable doing so or when the issue affects the wider community.
Address problems without multiplying them. Do not turn one problem into ten.
Share What You Actually Know
Useful communities depend on people representing what they know accurately and being clear about what they do not know.
Recommendations, reviews, technical claims, criticism, praise, observations, and advice can come from direct experience or information reasonably believed to be accurate. Secondhand information is not the same as firsthand experience, and one person’s experience does not automatically establish a general rule.
Everyone is entitled to an opinion, including someone with limited familiarity or experience. An initial impression or consumer perspective should not be presented with the authority of familiarity, participation, or expertise that has not been established. Confidence, visibility, or a strong opinion does not establish experience or expertise.
Do not knowingly spread false or misleading information or present speculation, assumptions, rumors, or personal opinions as established fact. Speculation is fine when identified as speculation. If better information becomes available, correct the record when it matters.
Present information with the level of certainty the evidence supports. There is nothing wrong with saying “I don’t know,” “this is my opinion,” “this is my first impression,” or “this is what worked for me.”
Participate Responsibly
Participation in the community comes with responsibility. Personal choices remain personal until they materially affect another person’s safety, property, privacy, trust, access, or participation. Community activities should not expose other people or their property to risks they did not reasonably agree to accept, whether during rides, meetups, repairs, charging, modifications, transportation, storage, or other shared activities and spaces.
People are free to experiment with their own bikes, batteries, parts, equipment, and modifications. That freedom does not require other people to accept risks they did not choose. Hosts, organizers, and moderators may establish reasonable safety conditions for shared spaces and activities. A safety restriction does not necessarily mean someone has done something wrong or is being disciplined.
Respect other people’s property. Do not take, use, borrow, modify, damage, or interfere with another person’s bike, battery, parts, tools, equipment, or other property without permission.
Represent yourself and what you know accurately. Do not knowingly misrepresent your identity, experience, qualifications, affiliations, authority, products, services, material facts, or another person’s endorsement. Strong technical or safety claims should be presented with the level of certainty and evidence they reasonably support.
Participation does not authorize anyone to speak or act on behalf of the community, its moderators, or another member. Attending activities, knowing members, selling products to members, providing technical help, or having access to community spaces does not establish community approval, recommendation, certification, partnership, or endorsement. Legitimate criticism or discussion of the community is different from claiming to represent it.
Respect people’s choices about being photographed, recorded, identified, or included in publicly distributed, promotional, or commercial content. Ordinary photos and videos are a normal part of community activities, but participation does not automatically create permission to feature someone, record private conversations, expose private or sensitive locations, or use someone’s identity or participation for those purposes.
People introduced or invited by members are subject to the same guidelines as everyone else. An introduction does not guarantee familiarity, trust, standing, or access, and another member’s support does not require moderators to extend access. Introducing another adult does not make someone responsible for everything that person later does, although knowingly or repeatedly helping someone disregard community boundaries can become relevant to that person’s own participation.
Do not circumvent or knowingly help someone else circumvent an access restriction or moderation decision. This includes using another account, another member, a guest invitation, a different community space, an outside relationship, or another means to obtain access that was intentionally withheld, limited, or removed.
Community trust and access should not be converted into authority or endorsement that was never given. Financial or commercial interests should not be concealed when they materially affect technical advice, recommendations, transactions, or safety claims. When selling or providing something to another member, do not knowingly conceal or misrepresent material information that would reasonably affect that person’s decision.
When important new information becomes available, particularly information affecting safety, do not knowingly conceal or misrepresent it when other people may reasonably rely on that information. Previous experience, acceptance, or trust does not require the community or its members to ignore new evidence. Safety, access, and participation decisions may change when circumstances or available information change.
Advice, previous experience, participation in community activities, or acceptance of a bike, part, battery, modification, product, service, or provider does not constitute a warranty, technical certification, or permanent endorsement by the community.
Community moderation addresses participation in the community. It does not determine criminal or civil liability or replace emergency services, appropriate authorities, or other outside processes. Serious or immediate safety concerns may require action to protect people or property without waiting for ordinary moderation or an outside process to begin or conclude.
Keep the Community Worth Being Part Of
These guidelines are here to keep the community enjoyable, useful, and focused on the shared interests that brought people together in the first place. They are not meant to anticipate every situation or replace reasonable judgment.
People will make mistakes, disagree, learn, change, and occasionally need to set boundaries with one another. What matters is participating in good faith, respecting other people and their choices, being honest about what you know and what interests you may have, and recognizing when your decisions begin to affect others.
The goal is simple: enjoy the community, contribute what you can, respect the people around you, and leave room for everyone else to do the same.