Effective Date: January 1, 2025
Last Updated Date: January 1, 2026
The BurnerSphere Community Standards are a set of principles that will allow for community members to experience a truly fantastic environment without the threat of defamation and intolerance, bullying, and harassment, lewd behavior, or the display of offensive content. The following addresses each area and Duct Tape and Zip Ties, LLC’s expectation of user behavior while using the BurnerSphere application.
The 10 Principles of Burning Man
BurnerSphere is built on the foundation of the 10 Principles of Burning Man,
including radical inclusion, self-expression, civic responsibility, and communal effort among them. These principles guide every interaction within our shared digital playa, encouraging respect, accountability, and creativity in all forms. As a global community, we strive to create a space where participants feel free to be themselves while honoring the diversity and dignity of others. The following Community Standards ensure that our virtual world remains a safe, welcoming, and inspiring environment for all.
Defamation and Intolerance
BurnerSphere is an international community of users from many different cultural backgrounds. Each community member has their unique background, cultural practices, accents and mannerisms, belief structure, and reasons for being in VR. As a community enriched by this multi-cultural environment, there will be no tolerance for bigotry about any user’s race, nationality, spiritual beliefs, physical abilities, or sexual orientation. Any language meant to defame or injure another user will result in an immediate suspension of your membership, and a subsequent determination of whether your membership will be closed permanently.
Harassment
A healthy community is rooted in the shared understanding that everyone is entitled to feel and express whether something is offensive or uncomfortable for them. When a user chooses to ignore this and continue to aim the awkward behavior at that person, it’s harassment. If another community member expresses that something makes them uncomfortable, you must cease that behavior in their presence. Continued harassing behavior will result in an immediate suspension of your membership, and a subsequent determination of whether your membership will be closed permanently.
Cyber-Bullying and Intimidation
Any form of Cyber-Bullying or intimidation levied against another user while on the BurnerSphere platform shall be grounds for membership suspension and/or termination.
Lewd or Unwanted Advances
We understand that there will be situations where two consenting adults may develop a relationship of a romantic or sexual nature. The sexual or romantic language used when one of the individuals has clearly expressed they aren’t interested will be considered a lewd or unwanted advance. Continued advances are grounds for membership suspension or termination, depending on the severity of the situation.
Discovery and Disclosure of Personal Information
Community Members are entitled to a reasonable level of privacy on the BurnerSphere platform and Discord server. Sharing personal information about your fellow users without their consent–including gender, religion, age, marital status, race, sexual preference, alternate account names, and real-world location beyond what is provided by them, isn’t allowed. Discovering this information and using it to contact the person without the community member’s consent will be considered inappropriate behavior and may be grounds for membership suspension or termination.
Impersonation of a BurnerSphere Employee
Employees and/or Team Members will never ask for passwords to your account. Any account found to be impersonating a BurnerSphere employee or team member will be subject to immediate suspension or termination.
Inappropriate Content
Publicly accessible Events and or Worlds may NOT contain, as determined by us in our sole and absolute discretion, any content that is obscene or explicit, violent, defamatory, disparaging, or illegal, or that promotes or that communicates messages that may reflect negatively on the goodwill of Big Rock Creative, Inc. or Duct Tape and Zip Ties, LLC (BurnerSphere). Public Events and or Worlds containing such content will be flagged as mature, set to private, or maybe removed entirely. Streaming content of an explicit nature, such as pornography, gruesome violence, and offensive lyrics, aren’t tolerated in Public Events or Worlds. Mature content must be flagged as mature and set as private. No adult content may be publicly accessible. No exceptions. Any Event or World that grants free and open access to users beyond the event-creator or world-builder is considered “public.” It may not contain inappropriate content or teleporters to inappropriate content/events/worlds. Attempts to display this content publicly will result in the suspension of the membership and potentially permanent termination. Additionally, we expect users to choose a Username and First Name free of inappropriate terms. BurnerSphere may adjust these names at its discretion.
Personal Space
BurnerSphere is a truly unique environment. The power of the platform is the ability to communicate verbally with fellow users and engage with them non-verbally through body gestures and the spatial positioning of your avatar. Like with real-world interaction, users in VR can feel social discomfort if those with who they’re interacting are violating real-world personal space. This interaction may include the proximity of one avatar to another, the placement of motion-captured hands, arms, or legs close to the avatar’s face, or even a high-speed approach and passing of one avatar through another. 2D users have to be aware that VR users experience these sensations differently. If a user expresses discomfort with a particular behavior and the activity continues, this can be considered harassment and may result in membership suspension or termination.
Warning, Suspension, Banishment
The staff of Duct Tape and Zip Ties, LLC understands that there’s a learning curve with VR and 2D virtual environments. Some new users may inadvertently violate some of the less strict standards listed above. We ask that the community help us kindly teach others the nuances of existing in a virtual environment. We were all new to VR at one time. It’s incredible how far calm and kind communication can go with people perceived as acting up. In cases where rational communication won’t work, violations of the Community Standards will first result in a warning, followed by suspension and eventual termination of the BurnerSphere membership. In-VR company representatives, called Moderators, may occasionally address disciplinary problems with a temporary removal from BurnerSphere.
Alternate Accounts
While community members may choose to create and use more than one account, specifically or consistently using an alternate account to harass other users or violate the Community Standards isn’t acceptable. Alternate accounts are separate from a user’s principal account, but misuse of alternate accounts can result in disciplinary action on the principal account.
Reporting Violations of the Community StandardsIf you feel an individual has breached the Community Standards, you may file an Abuse Report with the BurnerSphere Community Team. Include an explanation of the incident, the account names of those involved, and the time and date it transpired. The BurnerSphere Community Team will review the report and take the appropriate action. As a policy, we don’t provide details of those actions to the reporter. Please don’t follow up requesting the status of the decision. Reports can be submitted via email to info (at)
burnersphere (dot) org.