What is said here stays here
1.1What you learned, you may take with you. Your own insight is yours. Every other man's story stays where it was told.
What the room asks of you, and what happens if you break it.
The plain version
What is said in a circle stays in the circle.
You may always pass. Silence is a full answer, and nobody comes back to you for one.
One voice at a time.
Nothing is recorded, by us or by you. That cuts both ways: there is no tape, so the only account of a sitting is what the men in the room remember.
Break the first one and you are out. It is the only rule here that ends your participation without a warning first.
What happens if a rule is broken
Four things can happen, and this is the whole list. We would rather you knew it before you read the rules than after somebody applied one to you.
- A warning.
- We tell you what happened and what has to change. Most things that go wrong in a room stop here.
- A facilitator switches off one microphone.
- It happens during the sitting and it applies to one person. You stay in the circle, you can still hear it, and you can still type in the chat. You are not told why in front of everyone, and neither is anyone else — the reason comes afterwards, from us, not in the room.
- A facilitator ends the sitting early.
- For everyone, at once, where the room needs it. It is not aimed at one person and it is not a punishment of one person.
- We suspend or close the account.
- This happens outside a sitting, not inside one. Suspension stops you taking a seat; closing the account ends your participation.
During a sitting a facilitator can switch off one microphone and can end the hour. Anything else happens afterwards, and it happens to an account rather than in the room.
A breach of confidentiality ends your participation immediately, without a warning first.
Repeating what another man said, outside the room, is the one thing this whole arrangement rests on. It does not get a first offence. We will not debate it with you, and we will not describe what happened to the rest of the circle.
The Circle Agreement
You agree to these before your first circle, and they hold for every circle after it. They are also the working agreement of the room itself.
Nothing is recorded, by us or by you
2.1No audio capture, no screen recording, no screenshots of the room or the chat, no notes about anyone else, no AI notetaker or transcription tool, nobody else sitting with you, and nobody else listening.
2.2Use headphones if you can be overheard.
Speak from your own experience
3.1Say "I". Not "you", not "we", not "people".
No advice, no fixing, no rescuing
4.1You are not here to solve anyone. Listening is the work.
One voice at a time
5.1Do not talk over another man. Raise your hand if you want the room. Let a silence be a silence.
You may always pass
6.1Silence is a full answer. You can stay muted, decline a question, or leave the room, at any moment, without explaining.
No contempt
7.1No mockery, harassment, hate, threats, sexual content, or attacks — about anyone, present or absent.
Be who you say you are
8.1A first name or a chosen name is welcome. An invented person is not: no impersonation, no invented history.
Do not diagnose and do not prescribe
9.1Not for another man, and not out loud as advice for the room. No medication recommendations.
If someone is in danger, say so
10.1Tell the facilitator out loud, or call emergency services. Remember that nobody can see you or find you — if it is not said, it is not known. Do not carry it alone.
Arrive on time, and able to be here
11.1Not drunk or high in a way that makes you unavailable to the room.
What you read from a man's seat is covered by rule 1
12.1If he wrote something about himself and you read it in the room, treat it exactly as if he had said it out loud.
The facilitator can switch off a microphone, and can end the sitting
13.1That is part of how the room is kept. A man whose microphone is switched off stays in the circle and can still hear it. It is not a punishment and you will not be told why in front of the room.
Breaking these ends your participation
14.1A breach of confidentiality ends it immediately.
These fourteen are Annex A of the Terms, and taking a seat is conditional on them. Where this page and the Terms differ, the Terms are the binding version.
Report and block
If a man in a circle should not be there, tap his seat and report him. Here is what that does.
- Reporting a man blocks him.
- One action with one outcome, not two. There is no second step.
- He is never told.
- No notification, nothing on his screen, no mark on his seat, no count.
- You do not have to give a reason.
- The app does not ask for one, and we do not come back to you for one.
- It starts from the next seat, not this one.
- A block takes effect the next time either of you asks for a seat. If you need to go tonight, leave the room.
A block is not absolute. If you are ever seated with a man you blocked, leave the room and write to us. If the problem is a facilitator, write to us rather than relying on a block.
A report is read, and it is acted on.
A person reads what comes in and a person decides what happens next, from the four things above. You are not given a case number, because the answer comes back to you directly. If what happened needs more than a block, the last section is the route.
Drinking, drugs, and what this room is for
Talking about your own substance use and your own recovery is what this room is for. Nothing on this page limits that.
Say what you drank, what you used, what it cost you, and what you are doing about it, in whatever words you use for it. Rule 9 does not touch any of that, and neither does rule 7 — describing your own life is not contempt and it is not advice.
Three things are not welcome, and all three are about the other man rather than about you.
Naming medications and dosages. Recommending anyone's treatment, programme or dose. And advice dressed as experience — the sentence that starts as your story and lands as an instruction for the man who just spoke.
The line is the difference between "this is what happened to me" and "this is what you should do".
What we owe you
The promises run both ways. These four are ours, and each one has a cost we would rather you knew about now.
- Nothing is recorded.
- No audio capture, no transcript, no summary, no notetaker. The cost is that there is nothing to play back: if you tell us something went wrong, we have what you say and what other men say, and no tape to settle it.
- No model reads anything you write or say.
- Nothing written in the app and nothing said in a circle is read by a language model, summarised by one, or used to train one. Changing that would need its own consent.
- Nothing is sold.
- Not your address, not what you write about yourself, not what you do in the app. There is no advertising.
- A facilitator keeps the shape of the hour.
- He says what the hour contains and he keeps the phases. He does not assess you or diagnose you, and nothing he says is treatment. Tembral is not therapy.
One thing we will not claim: that we cannot read what you write about yourself. We can. It is held on a server we run and we hold the keys to it. No other account can read it, and we do not go looking — but decide what to write knowing that, rather than knowing a flattering version of it.
We are also not a neutral pipe. We schedule the sitting, we appoint the facilitator, and we set the phases. Holding the room is the product, and we do not disclaim it.
If you need a person, not a mechanism
Blocking is narrow. Some things need reading by somebody.
For anything about conduct — what happened in a room, a facilitator, an account, a rule on this page — write to frank@tembral.com. A person reads it and answers it.
For anything about your own data — a copy of it, a correction, deletion, or a question about what is held — write to privacy@tembral.com. What we hold and how long we hold it is set out in the privacy notice.
What to put in a report so it can be acted on is on the reporting page. The binding version of everything above is in the Terms.
Last updated
This page was last changed on 6 September 2026.
One version, one date, no archive.
