Community Policy

Genius is a place where everyone should feel comfortable to contribute knowledge and take part in thoughtful discussion. The forums engage Genius users beyond the music knowledge project, providing a space where contributors and music fans can discuss, debate, and continue to foster our growing online community. The Genius Moderation team leads the conversation, adding thoughtful contributions to community discussions as well as creating interesting topics of their own. They also make sure that the forums and song pages are a safe place for everyone.

We take abuse, harassment, hate speech, and baseless conspiracy theories seriously. Freedom of speech doesn't mean you get to upload or post whatever you want to Genius--we reserve the right to remove content, including uploaded songs or texts, that are purposefully created with the intention of harming marginalized people or groups, contain excessive hate speech, and/or contain harmful baseless conspiracy theories.

Reporting abuse, messaging a moderator or staff member, or tagging @genius-moderation will alert the moderation team to content and/or users that intentionally disregard these guidelines. Continued violation of the guidelines will result in disciplinary measures, which may ultimately lead to account suspension.

In order to better educate our community, Genius defines hate speech as language that is derogatory and/or discriminatory towards a person or group on the basis of attributes such as race, ethnicity, origin, religion, sexual orientation, gender, disability, sex, age, mental illness, socioeconomic class, or body type. This list is not exhaustive and may be updated from time to time.

→ Click here for a list of Community Staffers and Moderators.

Forum EtiquetteKeep all discussions civil. Be respectful of the topics and the people discussing them, even if you disagree with some of what is being said.Try not to stray from the discussion topic. If you are straying off into a new topic, start a new thread for it.Give new members some slack. Make them feel welcome into the community. You were once a new contributor too.Don't feed the flames of bad behavior. It consumes your energy and wastes everyone's time. Contact a mediator, moderator, or community staff member who will resolve the situation.Penalty System

Genius moderation uses a 3-strike penalty system. Upon a user's first offense, a member of the moderation team (mediators, moderators, and community staff members) will reach out with an initial warning and a link to the moderation guidelines. After the initial warning, further offenses will result in penalty strikes that include temporary bans of increasing length until the third strike which will result in a permanent ban.

Here's the process:Warning1 strike = 24 hour suspension2 strikes = 7 day suspension3 strikes = permanent ban from the siteHowever, there are more severe offenses that will result either in a permanent ban following an initial warning, or an immediate ban without warning depending on severity. Users who break the guidelines in multiple ways at the same time will be penalized for the most severe offense.

Offenses Key

Full strikes:
These offenses will earn the offender one strike.Targeted mass-downvoting--5 or more downvotes in succession on a single user's contributions.Harassment--Personal attacks or insults of any kind (bullying, targeting, flaming, name-calling, defamation, etc.) in annotations, suggestions, comments, pyongs, forums, or private messages.Hate Speech--Language that is derogatory/discriminatory towards a person or group on the basis of attributes such as race, religion, ethnic origin, sexual orientation, gender, or disability.Trolling--Deliberately making random, unsolicited, and/or controversial comments with the intent to provoke an emotional reaction from unsuspecting readers to engage in a fight or argument.Spamming--Repeatedly posting random, pointless, irrelevant, or insubstantial comments. Spamming also includes necrobumping (reviving old threads) in rapid succession and excessively posting unconstructive threads.Derailing or Hijacking--Purposely throwing a thread off topic, so much so that the original discussion is unable to continue or creating a separate conversation.Creating Alternate Accounts--We only allow one account per person. If you lose access to your account, there's no need to create another one. Instead, try resetting your password on the login page. If you are still unable to log in, please contact a community staff member.Advertisements, Leaks, and Illegal Downloads--Posting links for advertisements, referral links, leaked audio, torrents, or any other illegal downloads.Improperly Sourcing Snippets--Repeatedly refusing or ignoring sourcing protocol for transcribing unreleased song snippets on the song page.Shitposting--Making irrelevant, disruptive, unconstructive threads or posts.Post-Warning Permanent Bans:
These offenses will earn the offender an initial warning and then a permanent ban if they repeat the offense or another one in this category.Uploading Harmful Content--This includes uploaded songs or texts that are purposefully created with the intention of harming marginalized people or groups, contain excessive hate speech, and/or contain harmful baseless conspiracy theories.IQ Gaming--Tampering with metadata or other song page elements to game the IQ system.Inappropriate & Trolling Annotations--Creating annotations that are deliberately offensive, troll readers or the song itself, or are otherwise random/irrelevant.Plagiarism--Copying information from other sites or other pages on Genius without sourcing (quoting & linking).Song Page Self-Promotion--Annotations, bios, suggestions, or comments that contain links or promotional language for one's artistic projects, websites, emails, or social media.Account Sharing--Multiple people operating from the same Genius account.Offensive Usernames & Avatars--Avatars or usernames that contain nudity or violence, or are abusive, racist, or sexist.Immediate Permanent Bans:
These offenses are not tolerated and will earn the offender an immediate permanent ban without warning.Pageview Boosting--Gaming the system to boost a song page's popularity by generating fake pageviews.Song Page Tampering--Creating fake song, artist, or album pages. Deliberately vandalizing lyrics with false edits or obstructive formatting. Editing song, album, or artist metadata with false information, or hijacking song pages by adding unrelated artist profiles.Songpage Spamming--Repeatedly posting the same or similar comments on a song page is also considered Spamming. Any suggestion/annotation considered spam will be removed. No advertising or referral links to other services are allowed.Sharing Private Information & Phishing--Violating a person's privacy by publishing private and personal information without their consent.Posting NSFW Content--Posting content anywhere on the site that contains nudity, pornography, or violence/gore. This includes posts that contain links to NSFW content, even if the content is not immediately viewable in the post.Subversive Alternate Account Creation--Creating numerous alternate accounts or creating alternative accounts to evade punishment or avoid restrictions. (All accounts will be permabanned).Severe Harassment--Consistent targeted or exceedingly widespread personal attacks or insults (bullying, targeting, flaming, name-calling, defamation, etc.) in annotations, suggestions, comments, pyongs, forums, or private messages.Community Roles:
Verified Artists, Transcribers, Editors, Mediators and Moderators are expected to behave as role-models on this site, and in addition to these penalties, they may also lose their role privileges, depending on the nature and severity of the offense. Staff and moderators are able to remove the Transcriber, Editor, Mediator, and Verified Artist roles from users who severely or repeatedly violate our guidelines. The Moderator role can only be removed by a Staff member.
Note: This list is not exhaustive, and may be amended as needed.