Professional Community Policy

Lynx exists to help the Vanderbilt community — students, alumni, and venture investors — build real things together. Unlike general social networks, every person on Lynx is here for the same reason: to find collaborators, discover promising ideas, and turn ambition into action. That shared purpose is what makes the platform valuable, and it is also what makes the standards in this policy so important.

Because Lynx is a small, trust-based network, a single bad actor can do meaningful harm. A fake profile erodes the confidence that lets students share early-stage ideas openly. Unsolicited mass messages make founders hesitant to list their projects. Hostile feedback discourages the kind of candid posting that surfaces the best opportunities. This policy exists to prevent those harms and to describe the behavior that keeps Lynx worth using.

This Professional Community Policy applies to everything you do on Lynx: your profile, the ideas and projects you post, the messages you send, and the way you interact with other members. It supplements the User Agreement, which governs your contract with Lynx, and the Privacy Policy, which explains how we handle your data. Where those documents address what is legally permitted, this policy addresses what is right for the community.

Lynx is a professional collaboration platform, and every member deserves to participate without fear of harm, intimidation, or abuse. We do not tolerate content or conduct that threatens, harasses, or demeans another person — regardless of whether it happens in a public post, a project listing, or a private message.

The following conduct is prohibited on Lynx:

• Threatening or inciting violence against any person or group, including implied threats or statements designed to make someone fear for their safety.
• Harassment, including repeated unwanted contact, targeted disparagement, or coordinated efforts to intimidate or silence another user.
• Hate speech — content that attacks or degrades individuals or groups based on race, ethnicity, national origin, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, religion, disability, or other protected characteristics.
• Sharing content that sexually exploits any person, including non-consensual intimate images or content involving minors.
• Encouraging or facilitating self-harm or harm to others.

If you feel unsafe due to something on Lynx, please report it immediately. We take safety reports seriously and will respond promptly. If you are in immediate danger, contact local emergency services first.

Trust is the foundation of every interaction on Lynx. When a student agrees to co-found a project, they need to know who they are committing to. When a VC reaches out about an idea, the founder needs to know the interest is genuine. That trust depends on every member presenting themselves and their work honestly.

You must represent yourself accurately on Lynx. This means:

• Using your real name and a profile that accurately reflects your identity. Impersonating another person — or creating a fictional persona to interact with other users — is not permitted.
• Selecting the correct account type. Student accounts must belong to current or former Vanderbilt students. VC accounts must belong to individuals who genuinely represent a venture capital firm or investment vehicle. Misrepresenting your account type to access features or information available only to certain roles is a serious violation.
• Accurately describing your ideas and projects. Inflating traction metrics, fabricating team members, or misrepresenting your project's stage or funding status misleads potential co-founders and investors alike.
• Accurately representing your skills, major, graduation year, and other profile fields. These details help others evaluate whether you are the right collaborator for their team.
• Not creating multiple accounts. Each person may maintain one Lynx account. Duplicate accounts used to evade enforcement actions or to artificially amplify one's presence will be removed.

We understand that startups are, by nature, aspirational. You are welcome to describe where your project is headed — just be clear about where it stands today.

Professionalism on Lynx does not mean formality — it means treating other members with the respect you would want in return. Founders who receive thoughtful, relevant outreach are far more likely to respond and collaborate. VCs who send well-considered messages to founders that actually fit their thesis build better reputations within the community. Good manners are good strategy.

To keep Lynx free of noise and spam, we enforce a daily outreach limit — referred to in the platform as dailyReachOuts. This limit applies to the number of unsolicited messages you can send to founders through idea and project listings each day. The specific limit is displayed in the app and may be adjusted over time. This cap exists not to restrict genuine networking but to prevent bulk, indiscriminate outreach that degrades everyone else's experience.

Beyond the daily limit, the following conduct standards apply to all messaging on Lynx:

• Do not send identical or near-identical messages to many users at once. Each outreach should be tailored to the recipient's specific idea, project, or background.
• VC outreach to founders must be relevant to the investor's stated investment focus. Contacting founders in industries entirely outside your firm's thesis wastes their time and clutter their inbox.
• Do not use Lynx's messaging system to solicit services, sell products, or recruit for opportunities unrelated to the Lynx platform's purpose of co-founder matching and startup collaboration.
• Respect a user's decision not to respond. Sending repeated follow-up messages after someone has not replied — or has declined to engage — crosses into harassment.
• Keep communication professional in tone. Personal insults, condescension, or aggressive negotiating tactics are not appropriate on this platform.

Lynx is built on the ideas its members post. Every idea listing, project update, and piece of community feedback contributes to the signal that makes the platform valuable. When that signal is polluted by spam, off-topic posts, or bad-faith content, everyone's ability to find good collaborators and opportunities is diminished.

When posting ideas, projects, or any other content on Lynx, you agree to the following:

• Post only genuine ideas and projects you are actually pursuing or seriously considering. Placeholder posts, joke listings, or content created solely to test the platform's features should not be published on your public profile.
• Do not post the same idea or project multiple times to gain additional visibility. If you want to update your listing, edit the existing post rather than creating a new one.
• Do not use idea or project descriptions as a vehicle for advertising unrelated products, services, or external opportunities. Lynx is not a general job board or marketplace.
• Feedback on others' ideas — whether in messages or profile interactions — should be constructive, specific, and offered in good faith. Dismissive or belittling feedback adds nothing to the community.
• Do not post content that is intentionally misleading about market conditions, industry data, or competitor information in order to make your own project appear more attractive.

If you are not sure whether a post is appropriate, ask yourself: would this content help another Vanderbilt student or investor make a better decision? If the honest answer is no, reconsider before posting.

When founders share early-stage ideas on Lynx, they are often disclosing details they have not made public elsewhere — market hypotheses, prototype plans, team dynamics, or financial projections. When users message each other, they may share personal context they would not post publicly. These disclosures are made in trust, and that trust must be respected.

You must not:

• Share, forward, or publicly post the content of private conversations without the explicit consent of everyone involved. What happens in a Lynx conversation stays there unless all parties agree otherwise.
• Disclose another user's personal information — including their email address, phone number, physical location, or other contact details — that was shared with you in the course of using the platform. This applies whether or not the information was technically accessible to you.
• Engage in doxxing: researching, aggregating, or publishing private information about another person with the intent to expose, harass, or harm them.
• Attempt to identify the real-world identity of a user based on information they have chosen not to disclose on their profile.
• Use information learned on Lynx — about an idea, a team, or a person — in ways that would harm the person who shared it, such as sharing proprietary business concepts with their competitors.

Respecting privacy is not only a policy requirement — it is a condition of the openness that makes Lynx work. If founders and students cannot share ideas candidly, the quality of collaboration on the platform suffers for everyone.

When Lynx becomes aware of a potential policy violation — through a user report, automated detection, or our own review — a member of the Lynx team will investigate. We look at the full context: the content itself, the account's history, the nature of the interaction, and any explanation the member provides. We aim to make fair decisions, not reflexive ones.

Enforcement actions are taken on a graduated scale based on the severity and frequency of violations:

Warning

For first-time or minor violations, we will typically notify you of the specific policy you have violated and what you need to change. No content is removed and your account remains fully active. We document the warning internally.

Content Removal

If a post, project listing, or message violates this policy, we may remove it from the platform. You will be notified of the removal and the reason. Your account otherwise remains active.

Temporary Suspension

Repeated violations, more serious single violations, or a pattern of conduct contrary to the spirit of this policy may result in a temporary suspension of your account. During a suspension you cannot log in, post, or message other users. The duration depends on the severity of the conduct.

Permanent Ban

The most serious violations — including threats of violence, sexual exploitation of minors, coordinated harassment campaigns, deliberate identity fraud, or any conduct that poses a genuine safety risk to community members — will result in permanent removal from Lynx. Permanent bans are not reversed except in extraordinary circumstances reviewed by Lynx leadership.

We reserve the right to skip earlier steps in this sequence when the severity of the violation warrants it. Context matters in both directions: a single serious violation can result in an immediate ban, while a borderline first offense from an otherwise trusted community member may result in no more than a warning.

If you believe an enforcement action taken against your account was made in error — or that your content was removed without adequate justification — you have the right to appeal. We recognize that automated systems and human reviewers can make mistakes, and we take appeals seriously.

To appeal a decision, contact the Lynx Trust and Safety team at trust@lynx.community. Your appeal should include:

• Your Lynx username and the email address associated with your account.
• The specific action you are appealing (content removal, suspension, or ban).
• A clear explanation of why you believe the decision was incorrect, including any context that was not available to the reviewer at the time.
• Any supporting evidence you believe is relevant, such as screenshots or additional context about the interaction in question.

We aim to respond to all appeals within five business days. During the review period, any suspension or content removal remains in effect. If your appeal is successful, your content will be restored or your account reactivated, and the incident may be removed from your record depending on the circumstances. If your appeal is unsuccessful, we will explain why and, where appropriate, indicate whether further escalation is possible.