The Pull Community Handbook

Edition 1 · Public website revision · October 10, 2026

A Christian community for adults 18 and older. Membership is free. Your username is your community name. Gatherings are coming soon. Operator: Chris Pagliocca, United States. Support and privacy: paglioccachris@gmail.com.

2. Mission and culture

The Pull exists to create a welcoming Christian community where believers, seekers, skeptics, and people just beginning to explore faith can honestly wrestle with questions about God, Jesus, the Bible, and life.

Our goal is to seek truth, not win arguments. We are centered on Jesus, but participation does not require agreement with our beliefs. Someone who remains unconvinced is still welcome when they participate respectfully.

Our invitation is: “Come sit with us. We’re learning too.”

Members may read quietly, participate occasionally, or ask basic questions. There are no attendance requirements, public measures of spiritual progress, or expectations to share personal struggles. Do not turn someone’s doubts or conversion into a community achievement.

The Pull complements a local church. It does not claim to replace church life, pastoral care, professional support, or emergency services.

3. Statement of faith

The Pull is a Christian community. We believe:

• There is one God, Creator of all things.
• Jesus Christ is the Son of God.
• Jesus was crucified, died, and rose from the dead.
• Salvation is offered through Jesus Christ by God’s grace.
• The Bible is Scripture and is foundational to understanding the Christian faith.
• People are called to love God and love one another.
• Following Jesus should affect how we live, not simply what we claim to believe.

Members do not have to agree with this statement to participate. Agreement is not an account-creation checkbox. Respecting the community rules is.

When discussing differences among Christian traditions, identify the perspective being presented. Do not label every disputed interpretation “what all Christians believe.” We can explain our convictions without pretending there are no other interpretations.

4. The founder and leadership

The founder is a fellow learner and community builder, not automatically a pastor, theologian, biblical scholar, counselor, or spiritual authority. Leadership means responsibility for the space, not ownership of other people’s beliefs.

The founder’s responsibilities are to preserve the mission, appoint and support moderators, review serious incidents, keep policies consistent, and acknowledge mistakes. The same conduct rules apply to the founder.

Do not use spiritual status to demand obedience, secrecy, money, loyalty, or personal access. No one may claim that disagreeing with a moderator is disagreeing with God.

Chris is the founder and initial operator. The site is not continuously monitored. Independent appeal review requires another reviewer who did not make the original decision; we will explain any staffing delay rather than claim independent review has happened.

5. Membership and joining

Membership is for adults aged 18 or older. The joining flow must state this clearly and require an age declaration before collecting a profile or allowing participation. An age declaration is not proof of age and must never be described as verification.

Joining sequence:

• Read the age requirement and community introduction.
• Confirm eligibility, create an account, and verify the email address.
• Read the privacy notice and accept the community rules.
• Choose a username; this is also the name other members see. Real names, photographs, denomination, location, and testimony are optional.
• Review messaging controls and learn how to block or report.
• Enter the forums. Introducing yourself is optional.

Do not require full birth dates, addresses, identity-document uploads, or detailed personal histories by default. Any age-assurance method beyond a declaration needs a deliberate privacy and implementation review before use. Do not send identity documents to moderators through chat.

Suspected underage accounts

Act on credible information, such as a member stating they are under 18. Do not publicly speculate about someone’s age or assume it from their writing, interests, or photograph.

Temporarily restrict participation and messaging while a designated moderator reviews the concern. A confirmed underage account loses membership access. Send a brief, respectful explanation that membership is adults-only; parental permission does not override the policy. Give an adult who was restricted in error a way to appeal through the support process. Do not improvise identity checks in direct messages.

Limit information to what is needed to review the age concern. Contact the owner for data removal; do not collect identity documents in chat.

6. Rules for every conversation

Questions are welcome here. Disrespect isn’t. These rules apply in forums, profiles, private messages, and any future gatherings.

• Challenge ideas without attacking people. No insults aimed at a person, ridicule, threats, slurs, dehumanization, harassment, or deliberate humiliation. Criticism of Christianity or a biblical interpretation is not automatically an attack on members.
• Respect freedom of belief. No coercion, shame, repeated conversion pressure, or claims that someone owes you an explanation for their beliefs. Christians, skeptics, and moderators must meet the same standard.
• Listen before assuming. Ask what someone means. Represent opposing views fairly. Do not repeatedly demand answers after someone has withdrawn from a discussion.
• Keep personal information personal. Do not post identifying details, private messages, prayer requests, or someone else’s story without permission. Reporting relevant material to moderators is an exception; seeking appropriate outside help is not prohibited by this rule.
• Respect contact boundaries. A declined message request, a block, or a request to stop ends the contact. No alternate accounts, public callouts, or recruiting others to continue it.
• No exploitation. No scams, sexual solicitation, explicit sexual material, predatory behavior, blackmail, or grooming. The Pull is not a dating or sales service. Sensitive topics can be discussed respectfully and without graphic detail.
• No spam or recruitment campaigns. No mass messages, repetitive promotions, unsolicited fundraising, or repeated attempts to redirect members to another group. Relevant resources are welcome when shared to help a conversation rather than market something.
• Be honest about evidence and expertise. Do not fabricate sources, credentials, testimonies, or personal experiences. Separate evidence, interpretation, and opinion. Correct mistakes. Do not present dangerous claims as professional advice or pressure someone to abandon professional care.
• Keep politics in proportion. Faith can intersect with public issues. No campaigning, partisan recruitment, or treating a politician or party as synonymous with Christianity. Move or close discussions that repeatedly take over the community’s purpose.
• Do not evade moderation. No ban evasion, retaliatory reports, deleting and reposting removed content, or harassment of people who report concerns. Good-faith appeals and criticism of moderation are allowed.

An occasional swear word is not, by itself, the same as targeted abuse. Moderators consider context and behavior rather than enforcing a rule against uncomfortable questions or imperfect wording.

7. Private messaging at launch

Messaging should help adults build friendships and offer encouragement. Access to someone’s inbox is an invitation, not an entitlement.

Member experience

• Messaging is available from launch, after account and email checks.
• A first contact arrives as a message request. The recipient can accept, decline, block, or report it.
• Before acceptance, allow one short text introduction and no attachments. Prevent repeated requests after a decline; let the recipient reopen contact if they choose.
• Members can turn new message requests off while keeping existing accepted conversations.
• Block stops further direct contact and new requests immediately. It does not erase evidence already included in a report. Blocked members’ forum posts remain visible. Blocking affects direct contact, not forum participation.
• Report is available on requests and individual messages, including after a block.
• Start with text conversations. File uploads, group messages, disappearing messages, voice notes, and private calls are outside the first release.
• Do not email message bodies by default. Notifications can say there is a new message without exposing its contents.

Message-request limits: three new requests in a 24-hour window during the first seven days, then ten per window. The window starts with the first request. One introduction is limited to 600 characters. Per-account limits per 24-hour window are 20 discussions, 100 replies, 200 messages and 20 reports. Discussions, replies and reports require a 10-second gap; messages require 2 seconds. Limits also apply to staff.

Boundaries in messages

All community rules still apply. No unsolicited sexual or romantic approaches, money requests, aggressive persuasion, spiritual manipulation, or demands for secrecy. Ask before offering personal advice. No one owes another member a reply, personal details, a photograph, a phone number, or an off-platform relationship.

Do not offer “private counseling” or imply that an ordinary member or moderator has professional qualifications they do not hold. Moderators use an identifiable support channel for official actions, rather than mixing official decisions with friendship chats.

What “private” means

Messages are intended for their participants, not the wider membership. Do not promise absolute confidentiality or end-to-end encryption. Recipients can copy or report messages. See the privacy notice for database storage and administrator access.

Review policy: the app gives staff the selected reported message or request introduction and the member’s explanation, not a browse-all-inboxes feature. Other forms report the selected discussion, reply or profile material. Infrastructure administrators can access stored records when necessary for operation, security or a data request; access must be limited to the purpose.

Message requests, blocking, reporting and rate limits apply to all members.

8. Prayer, personal stories, and difficult topics

Before sharing another person’s circumstances, remove names, locations, contact details, and unnecessary identifying information. Ask permission when the story is theirs to tell. Members may request prayer without explaining why.

Responses should offer care without diagnosing, investigating, assigning blame, or promising healing. Do not say a person’s suffering proves weak faith, lack of prayer, or moral failure. Do not pressure them to reconcile with someone who harmed them or keep abuse secret.

For grief, abuse, addiction, illness, relationships, or other sensitive subjects, use a brief content note when helpful and avoid graphic details. Moderators can hide content and explain why. They cannot edit another member’s wording through the app.

A prayer request is not permission to message someone privately. Use the normal message-request process, and respect refusal.

9. Reporting and moderation

What a report needs

Provide a report action on every discussion, reply, profile, and message. The form should capture the content reference, reason, optional context, and whether there is an immediate concern. A report can be submitted without first confronting or messaging the other person.

A successful report displays a confirmation and enters the restricted staff queue. Reports and responses are available in My account. Reporter identity is visible to staff, not routinely to the reported person. Surrounding circumstances can still reveal who reported.

The owner checks reports and the support inbox. The Pull is not monitored continuously and is not an emergency channel.

Decision sequence

• Read the reported material and enough context to understand it.
• Check for immediate safety, privacy, or account-security concerns. Restrict contact or hide material promptly when needed, pending review.
• Identify the behavior and the specific rule; distinguish disagreement from misconduct.
• Consider severity, repetition, power imbalance, and prior relevant incidents. Do not decide by popularity, denomination, donations, or friendship.
• Choose a proportionate action and record the reason.
• Notify the affected member with the rule, action, duration where relevant, and appeal route. Tell the reporter the report was reviewed without disclosing another member’s private information.

Response levels

These are guidelines, not a guaranteed number of chances. A warning is not required before acting against serious harm. Temporary protective actions should be reviewed and reversed when mistaken.

Appeals and accountability

Appeal window: 14 days from a decision. Provide a support route available even to suspended members. Permit one substantive appeal per decision and consider genuinely new evidence afterward. We will explain delays in review.

The app requires someone other than the original moderator to review the appeal. A moderator involved personally in the dispute steps aside. Complaints about the founder go to the designated backup reviewer; if no independent reviewer is available, explain that limitation rather than claiming independence.

The record should include the incident identifier, rule, necessary evidence, action, reviewer, date, and appeal outcome. Avoid speculative labels or unrelated personal information. Correct the record and apologize when an action was wrong. No public shame boards.

10. Serious safety concerns

This is an internal response framework, not clinical advice or a promise of emergency intervention.

If content suggests immediate danger, respond calmly, encourage the person to contact local emergency help and a trusted person nearby, and explain that The Pull cannot provide continuous crisis support. Do not conduct amateur counseling or promise secrecy. Do not make members responsible for keeping someone alive through private messages.

For threats, abuse, exploitation, or stalking: restrict harmful contact where necessary, limit exposure of private material, and alert the designated lead. Keep a minimal incident record through an approved process. Do not encourage members to investigate, confront a suspect, or circulate harmful content.

Suspected illegal exploitation material must not be downloaded, copied into ordinary tickets, or circulated among moderators. The owner handles platform escalation and required reporting. External disclosure must follow the applicable process and be limited to necessary information.

The country of operation, countries served, escalation contacts, and jurisdiction-specific obligations remain launch decisions. This handbook does not settle those legal requirements.

11. Accounts, privacy and deletion

Read the privacy notice and account/data-request page before joining. Other signed-in members can see your username, biography and visible forum contributions. Messages are participant-only in the app, subject to reports and administrative access described in the notice.

To leave, use My account → Close my account and request deletion. Participation stops immediately. Chris handles deletion requests personally; stored data is not erased instantly. Email paglioccachris@gmail.com if you cannot sign in, want access or correction, or need to clarify what should be removed. We aim to review and respond within 30 days.

12. Free membership and future gatherings

No paid prayer, donations, merchandise or subscriptions are offered. Members must not solicit money privately. Live gatherings are coming soon; there are no active event signup links.

13. Changes and contact

The owner may update the handbook with a new edition date and explain material changes. These conduct rules apply to staff and members alike. Contact paglioccachris@gmail.com for support.

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