COMMUNITY STANDARDS

Honest reviews.
Public anonymity.

Who can review?

Sign in with ChatGPT and confirm you have personally trained at the academy or with the instructor. Provide your training relationship and most recent training month. These details are self-reported; sign-in is not proof of attendance. Each account may submit one review per academy or instructor, and up to five reviews in a rolling 24-hour period.

Your public identity

Anonymous posting is on by default. Visitors see “Anonymous practitioner,” your review text, scores, submission date, and any class counts you provide. If you turn anonymity off, your chosen display name is public. We do not publish your sign-in email, account ID, training relationship, or training month.

MatGuide retains a site-specific account ID privately for duplicate prevention and moderation. Moderators can read the review and private training details. Your words can still identify you: avoid distinctive dates, personal details, or other information you do not want shared. Anonymous here means anonymous to visitors, not untraceable to the service.

What gets published?

Every new review waits for moderation and has no effect on ratings until approved. The same rules apply to praise and criticism. Negative reviews are welcome when they describe a relevant, firsthand experience. A low score by itself is not a reason to reject a review.

Describe specific observations and keep claims grounded in what you experienced.
No spam, threats, harassment, personal attacks, or other people’s private information.
No fabricated experiences, coordinated rating manipulation, or undisclosed paid or conflicted reviews. Disclose relevant affiliations in your review.
Academy staff do not receive automatic authority to remove criticism. MatGuide’s moderator applies these rules.

Moderation and stored information

We store your submitted content, scores, selected display-name setting, account ID, training details, and moderation status in MatGuide’s database. Moderation decisions retain a private reason and moderator identifier. Only approved reviews appear publicly or contribute to scores. Rejected and pending submissions remain stored for moderation and duplicate prevention. Older submissions without an account and firsthand confirmation are held out of public ratings.

Signing in uses ChatGPT’s authentication service. Google review links open Google Maps; MatGuide does not import Google reviews or send your MatGuide review to Google.

Academy owners and flagged reviews

Verified academy owners may subscribe for $5 per academy per month to submit profile changes and flag published academy or instructor reviews. Ownership verification is separate from payment. Owners cannot change, delete, hide, or approve reviews, and subscriptions do not affect ratings or moderator decisions.

A flag enters a human moderation queue. The review remains published until a moderator finds a policy violation and removes it. Negative feedback alone is not a violation. Reviews and decision records are retained. Moderation is asynchronous and has no guaranteed response time.