Aqora Community Guidelines
Published: 07.10.2025
Applies to: Profiles, discussions, datasets, workspaces, algorithms, leaderboards/competitions, comments, and messages on Aqora.
These guidelines set the tone for our community so researchers, engineers, students, and companies can collaborate productively. They sit alongside our Terms, Acceptable Use Policy, and Datasets and Algorithms Policy. When in doubt: be respectful, cite sources, and make results reproducible.
Quick-start checklist
Be respectful; critique ideas, not people.
Add a license and a short README to datasets (provenance, intended use, limitations).
Credit your sources and collaborators.
Share enough detail to reproduce results (versions, commands, seeds/hyperparams, hardware).
No harassment, hate, or sexual content involving minors.
No PHI/medical records, unlawfully obtained data, or export-controlled technical info.
No scraping, sockpuppets, vote manipulation, or cryptomining.
1) Be excellent to each other
Respect & inclusion. No harassment, doxxing, or hateful conduct targeting protected characteristics.
Professional tone. Disagree with evidence; avoid personal attacks and sarcasm.
Safety. Absolutely no sexual content involving minors; keep posts suitable for a global research community.
2) Research integrity & reproducibility
Make it runnable. Provide steps, versions, and configs to reproduce your numbers (commands, seeds, lib versions, compiler/toolchain, device/provider notes).
Baselines. Include relevant classical and quantum baselines; report error bars/multiple runs where feasible.
Noise & hardware transparency. State simulator noise model vs. real-hardware runs, provider, qubit count/topology, transpilation settings, shot counts.
Claims. Avoid marketing claims (“quantum advantage”) without rigorous methodology and competitive classical baselines.
Evaluation splits. If you publish results to a public leaderboard, keep test sets hidden and document how leakage is prevented.
3) Sharing datasets: what “good” looks like
Include a README of your dataset with these recommended sections:
Summary: 1–3 sentences (domain, task).
Provenance: how/where collected; rights holder(s); third-party T&Cs if any.
License: CC/ODC (or equivalent) with link/SPDX tag.
Intended use / out-of-scope use: e.g., “benchmark QAOA on Max-Cut; not for biometric ID.”
Personal data: none / included with lawful basis & notices; contact for data-subject requests.
Ethics & risk: possible biases, sensitive attributes, mitigations.
Schema: columns/units, file layout, checksums.
Versioning: what changed since the last release.
Citations: papers, creators, upstream sources.
4) Lawful, ethical, and safe content
Privacy & PHI. Don’t upload Protected Health Information (PHI) or medical records. If personal data is present, you must have a lawful basis, provide required notices, minimize data, and honor data-subject requests.
No unlawfully obtained data. No paywalled dumps, non-consensual imagery, or content acquired in breach of third-party terms.
Security. No weaponized malware or exploits; report vulnerabilities privately to security@aqora.io (see Terms).
Export controls & sanctions. Don’t post controlled technical data (e.g., ITAR/EAR, EU Dual-Use) or provide prohibited technical assistance.
Extremism & crime. No praise, support, or instruction for extremist violence or illegal acts.
5) Fair play on leaderboards & competitions
One human, one account. No sockpuppets; no sharing one account across a team.
No leakage. Don’t expose hidden test sets or infer them via probing; don’t re-upload test labels.
No manipulation. Don’t inflate stars/downloads/likes with bots or coercion.
Teams. One team per person per competition; merges only if allowed; default equal prize split unless all team members agree otherwise in writing.
Conflicts. Disclose affiliations with hosts/providers when submitting.
6) Licensing, attribution, and citation
Pick a license. Use OSI-approved licenses for code (once released) and CC/ODC (or equivalent) for datasets. If you don’t add a license, others cannot legally reuse your work.
Respect upstream. Preserve license files, notices, and attribution.
Cite properly. Include references (BibTeX/APA) for papers, datasets, and major dependencies.
Derivatives. State what you changed and how to reproduce it.
7) No scraping or misuse of the platform
APIs first. Automated access must use our published APIs within rate limits.
TDM opt-out. To the extent permitted by law, Aqora opts out of text & data mining via these Guidelines and machine-readable signals (robots.txt/meta); honor them.
No mirrors/replicas. Don’t resell or redistribute non-public content or build a competing service from bulk exports without our written permission.
No cryptomining. Don’t run unrelated distributed or mining workloads anywhere on Aqora.
8) Discussion etiquette
Ask well. Provide context, code/error snippets, and what you tried.
Answer well. Be precise; link to docs/papers; note limitations.
Stay on topic. Use tags; avoid spam and promotional blasts.
Close the loop. If a reply solves your issue, acknowledge it.
9) Moderation: how we enforce
We aim for proportionate, transparent enforcement.
Possible actions (from light to strong):
Quiet edits (tags/format), 2) Warning with guidance, 3) Temporary posting limits, 4) Content removal or unlisting, 5) Account suspension, 6) Permanent ban and—if applicable—prize clawback.
Transparency & appeals. If we restrict your content/account, we’ll explain why. You can appeal at legal@aqora.io.
10) Reporting concerns
Content or conduct: use in-product report tools where available or email legal@aqora.io (include links/screenshots/context).
Security vulnerabilities: security@aqora.io (coordinated disclosure).
Data-subject requests (GDPR/DSA): privacy@aqora.io or the form linked from your account.
We may ask for more info to investigate. We don’t share reporter identities unless legally required.
11) Updates
We’ll iterate on these Guidelines as the community grows. Material changes will be announced on https://aqora.io and may be emailed to active users. Feedback welcome: support@aqora.io.