What counts as "off-topic"?

Here is a link to the official Khan Academy post about Community Guidelines. You can  also find the Community Guidelines by going to a video, clicking as though you are going to ask a Question, then clicking on the blue link below the text box.

I can understand being worried, confused, and/or frustrated that they did not specify which posts were off-topic or how to tell.  I wish the communication from the KA Guardian had included a link to the Community Guidelines.  [Edit: no the warning does not disappear, but it gets difficult to find as more notifications come in after it.(As I recall from the warning I got over a year ago, the communication disappears after it is read, which is also frustrating.)]

Good luck!
~ Janice, KA user

Huh.  The post above with the link was not held pending approval, but when I tried to submit this post combining the 2 previous posts, it got held for approval. 
A post I made 2 days ago with that link and another link (to a post in the KA Support Community) is still pending approval.  The reasons for posts getting held seem unpredictable.  Why is ZenDesk so difficult to use?

Even weirder, the post above is no longer pending approval.  I don't understand, but I'm glad it's visible.  

I deleted the other partial posts referred to in the italic part of the above post below my signature.

Thank you for you answer JaniceHolz, I finally read the community guidelines!

What counts as off-topic is kind of confusing, especially on computer programs where people may compliment other people's work, etc. So I'll see if a guardian decides to answer this post soon.

PS: Thanks for the info ❤︎Sua❤︎!

Hello, I would like to address the same topic as Tompuchay in his post above:

3 days ago I recieved a KA Guardian message on my account saying,

Hi, this is Nati. We're happy to have you using and contributing to Khan Academy. We're working hard to make sure that our video discussions are high quality, and we notice that you've made some off-topic posts. Please visit the Discussion tab on your profile page:
https://www.khanacademy.org/profile/bluelionpizza/discussion
There, you can delete your off-topic posts.

I didn't check my notifications on the day that the message came; I read it today, and I wanted to get in touch with a guardian as soon as I could. I found it confusing (and, truth be told, very stressful), because I strive to be as polite and respectful as I possibly can in all of my posts and discussions. I have read Khan Academy's Community Guidelines, and respect them.

If there are any posts of mine that violate the guidelines in any way - I'm not sure myself, as I was sure that they always respected them - then please let me know which ones they are, and I will amend/delete them promptly.

Just about the only post I've put on a video is a Tips & Thanks on Choosing the best text evidence, a video in the 9th Grade Reading and Vocab course. I am quite proud that it got 10 votes, making it the highest on the Top Voted list, but I understand if it is off-topic by giving a way to deduce wether a tomato is a fruit or a vegetable, rather than talking about the grammar, which is what the video is about. Naturally I will be disappointed to delete it - I hope I won't have to do that - but if it is too irrelevant, or not helpful, then delete it I will, with the utmost respect.

Thank You. Yours sincerely,

bluelionpizza

bluelionpizza

I agree that the KA Guardian message you received seems vague to the point of being almost useless.  

Evan Lewis,

Is this the standard way KA Guardians respond to flagged off-topic posts? If so, I can understand why 13-year-olds (or adults!) would not know which posts were a problem.
It seems to me that it would be incredibly helpful for such a message to include a link to the KA Guidelines.  If that is not usual, why not? 
It also seems to me that it would be extremely useful to give the user some guidance as to how their post(s) was(were) off-topic and maybe which post(s) is(are) off-topic.  If that's not usual, why not?

I highly agree with you on your last point - you're not given any information on exactly why you were sent the message. It's very impersonal, and it feels like you're being sent a routine message that gets sent to a large amount of users... I realise the reason why the messages are sent, they have a good intent - but they can apply to some KA users more than others, and it can be scary to see a notification with a grey exclamation mark on it when you never meant to offend anyone in any of your posts... and then you think, 'what have I said that's gotten me into trouble?' and it can be - at least it was for me - rather stressful.

Thanks for getting back to me, JaniceHolz! :)

I also just got a completely useless message from "Nati".

Hi bluelionpizza,

Thanks for taking the time to write your message, I understand your concerns. I probably won't be able tell you exactly what you can do to fix your issue, but I could give you some info that might be helpful.

A few things happened since when I made the first KA community center post on this topic. I probably won’t be able to tell you exactly which one of your posts was off-topic, but I’ll give you my experience as it might help you out.

Here is my story on this situation/what happened to me :

-First off, I got exact same the message as the one that you got, word-for-word, except for the fact that the guardian who sent me my message was called ‘Chris’ and not ‘Nati’. As you can expect, I was confused since I did not know which one of my posts was ‘off-topic’, and so I made this KA Help Center post, asking for help, to which I got the answer from Janiceholz.

-A few days later, I decided to go and check out my discussions list, and looked at my recent posts. After looking through my recent posts, I saw a discussion (composed of a few comments) that I had with another KA user. For convenience, let’s call that other KA user ‘MrPiano’ (I don’t remember his exact username, but it was something similar to that). This discussion that I had with MrPiano was about soccer, however, we had that discussion under a computer program which was about a basketball tournament.

-I realized that these posts about soccer seemed kinda off-topic, so I guessed that these where the ‘off-topic’ posts that the guardians where talking about, and I deleted them. Eventually, after as few days, MrPiano also deleted his comments about soccer. Because of that, I can deduce/guess that MrPiano either also got a message from a guardian to delete his posts, or a guardian manually deleted themselves.

-Now, around 3 weeks have passed, and I haven’t received any punishment from KA, so I probably deleted the right comment.

In case you’re wondering, here is the context of my off-topic soccer related messages  :

-someone released a computer program on KA, where they asked people to guess how an American basketball tournament (an actual one, happening ‘In-real-life’) would play out, what upsets would happen, what team would win the tournament, etc.

-I commented on that program saying ‘Great program, I’ll participate ! If this was something soccer (or as we call it in Europe 'football') related, I would probably have more accurate picks…’

-After a few days, MrPiano made a comment asking something along the words of ‘do you watch English soccer tournaments like the premier league, carabao cup, etc.? My team is Arsenal’. I replied with something along the words of ‘I am aware of the European soccer league standings, but I don’t watch full 90 minute matches.’

-We then made a few more comments about soccer, until I got my message from the KA guardian, and I deleted those messages.

Now, I'll mention a few more things that might help out:

-First off, I don't think that the KA guardian message was referring to the T&T post you made on the Choosing the best text evidence video. I've made many (at least 10) Answers/T&Ts similar to your 10 vote comment, but my KA guardian message never referred to any of them. They referred to comments relating to soccer.

-Secondly, I got my KA guardian message less than 1 week after I made my off-topic comments about soccer. What I can deduce from that, is that whenever you receive one of these KA guardian messages, it’s probably referring to one of your recent posts, not one from many months ago or a year ago.

-In summary, try to think of any recent (probably 1 month ago or less) post that you’ve made which was about something that completely had nothing to do about the computer program, video, or article on which you made the post (such as a discussion about soccer under a program about basketball in my case). This could also refer to making a post on a program with has a link to one of your own programs which does not involve the first program, it could refer to having a ‘casual conversation’ with someone that does not benefit to learning (such as just 2 people commenting things like ‘key how you doing ?’, ‘good how about you ?’), or anything of that sort.

-Also, if you somehow absolutely have zero clue and no idea on which ne of your posts is off-topic, you might have no choice, but to delete all of your recent posts (since maybe a month ago). However, I believe you should only do this if you absolutely, absolutely, ABSOLUTELY have no idea AT ALL on which one of your posts is the off topic one. I 100 % believe that anyone would be hesitant to do that, i would be devastated to do so. I therefore think this should only done as a last resort when nothing else works.

However, you should take everything I say with a grain of salt. I’m not a KA guardian, neither a KA expert. I’m just a young teenager who happened to use KA for 6 years, of which most of that time, I was inactive on KA. Anything I’ve said could’ve been false. I am just trying to help by talking from my experience.

Sorry for the late response, I had a national exam that I had to attend 2 days ago (it’s like the SAT for my country, except that it’s for 2nd high-schoolers). I also apologize for the long message, I’m not sure if I could’ve written it shorter or not, English is my first language, but no one speaks English in the area I live in. Maybe this message is just long because my English sucks (by the way, no, I did not use google translate to translate this from my language to English, and I did not use AI to generate this, this is 100 % written by me)

Also, as a reply to Janicezolz’s and bluelionpizza’s second message, I 100 % agree with you, these KA messages we get from guardians don’t tell us what we need to delete, and what is ok to not delete, and that they probably just CTRL COPY+PASTE these messages to large amounts of KA users, and that that might be a problem for some people. Thanks for both of your messages !

To cwalsh1223 #BBB, not sure if this post (mine) is of any help to you, but hope it helps!

Tompuchay (Inc Puchay)

Thank you for sharing your experience and your hypotheses.  (I found your English very understandable.)
I don't think you are correct about Guardian messages only being about recent posts; I think they are typically about posts that have been flagged in the last few days or weeks, but someone can flag a post that is months or years old.

Here's some of what I understand about the Flagging and Guardian review processes, based on what I learned from Support Advocate Evan Lewis over many many comments in posts here on the Support Community in the last year or 2:

• After someone applies to be a Guardian and is selected, they get training from Khan Academy on how to do the task (and presumably they get access to features/tools that other users don't have access to).
• When a user flags a post, it goes into a queue for Guardian review.
• Guardians prioritize reviewing recent posts over older posts.
• Supposedly if a recent post is flagged, typically a Guardian will review it within a couple days.  (I tried testing this in July 2025 and found that the majority of the posts I flagged when they were less than a day old did not appear to be reviewed for at least 2 weeks.  I have never gotten an answer as to whether that was unusual.)
• After a Guardian reviews a post, they may: 

1. Decide the post is fine and leave it.
2. Decide the post is fine but in the wrong place (such a Tip that was posted as a Question).
3. Decide the post just needs some editing.
4. Decide the post should be deleted.

• If action is needed, the Guardian may take the action without ever contacting the user who made the post.
• If the user has repeatedly gone against the KA Guidelines or done something excessively concerning, KA may take stronger measures, such as banning the user.
  
  

Johanna D.

In early 2025 when I was answering Questions in 6th grade math for hours every week, when I saw a post I thought went against the KA Guidelines, I used to try to guide the user as to how it was against Guidelines, and maybe why such posts were problematic.  As I recall, I got a Guardian message telling me not to do that (supposedly it creates more problems than it solves) but to just flag such posts and the Guardians would take care of it. 
I figured the Guardian who reviewed a problem post would give that type of guidance, since that seems necessary for users to learn what types of posts are okay.  If the Guardians don't give guidance on how to make better posts, and users are not allowed to, how will people who make problematic posts ever figure out which posts are okay??
[I'd like to address this to someone who works with the KA Guardians, but I don't know who that would be, and Evan Lewis almost never answers posts in the Support Community anymore even when he is tagged.]

JaniceHolz

Thanks your the response. Now that I think about it, I think you’re right about the fact that the Guardian messages are about messages that where flagged recently. I apologize for my mistake. Thanks also for explaining the Guardian and Flagging processes, and (even though they were not directed to me) the Info on how Guardians don’t give guidance on how to make better posts, I agree that there is a problem.

Other than that, there is not much more for me to add, your message was perfect.

Thank you!

Thank you both very much for your long and descriptive answers, I found them very helpful and informative; and they're also very well written!

I'm relieved to hear that it's unlikely that my post on Choosing the best text evidence was flagged - it's a year old now, anyway, so not very recent. I followed your advice and looked through my recent comments, from about 4 months ago till now, and deleted a few that I thought unnecessary rather than offensive, because the last thing I want to do on KA is offend anyone, and I kept that in mind for all of my posts. However, I also recalled a few comments that I made on my graphic of Perhaps my favourite hypercar ever... the Czinger 21C, which, as Tompuchay mentioned in his post above, could easily be classified as a casual conversation with another user. It did stay on the topic of hypercars, and I enjoyed sharing a few facts, but I understand how they could've been flagged, and so edited and deleted them.

I hope the comments I deleted satisfy the KA guardians, and - as I quote from the notification I recieved - Thanks for your help, and we look forward to great contributions from you!

I think that there should be a way on your profile to see which of your posts were flagged, such as making a red flag icon appear on it in your discussion page, or getting a notification of some sort letting you know which post was flagged and the reason for it, or some way of just being able to know would be very helpful. Furthermore, the Guardians would have to deal with fewer flagged posts, as the users would be able to deal with the editing and deleting themselves. This is just what I think is a good idea - let me know what you think! Thanks again!

Evan Lewis

Fernando

How do we find out why people are getting such vague messages from the KA Guardians?
Is there any way to give feedback that anyone at KA will actually use?

Hi everyone! (Thanks JaniceHolz for flagging!)

Thanks for taking the time to share your feedback and concerns here. I understand why receiving a general “off-topic posts” message without much context could feel confusing or stressful, especially for users who are trying to follow the guidelines and contribute positively to the community.

I've shared this feedback with our Trust & Safety team, and we'll be taking a close look at these concerns.

One thing we’ve already identified internally is that one of the default warning message templates used by some members of our moderation team did not include a direct link to the Community Guidelines. Many moderation messages already do include this information, but we agree that it should be consistent across the board. Because of that, we’re already working on updating the templates used by all staff so users can more easily review the guidelines and expectations referenced in the message.

Providing individualized explanations and examples for every flagged post is unfortunately not scalable given the size of the Khan Academy community. However, I do agree that for highly active users with many posts, a very generic message may not always be very helpful. I’ve reminded our moderation team to carefully review the context and timestamps of posts before sending warnings, and in cases where appropriate, to share links to specific threads/posts to help provide additional context.

The goal of these messages is not to punish users or make anyone feel anxious. The goal is to help users become familiar with the Community Guidelines and give them an opportunity to correct issues before they become more serious.

Since Khan Academy serves a very large educational community, it’s important that course discussions stay focused on learning-related topics. While we do allow a bit more conversational flexibility on Computer Programming projects, we still generally expect discussions to stay related to the code, project, or other technical topics. In the past, extended off-topic social conversations on projects have sometimes led to issues involving personal information sharing, off-site contact requests, arguments, and other situations that can negatively impact user safety and the learning environment.

We appreciate everyone who took the time to provide thoughtful feedback in this thread. Conversations like this are very helpful as we continue improving both our moderation processes and our communication with users.

Evan Lewis

Thank you for your detailed response.  (I wasn't sure if you would respond, since in the last few months you often seem too busy to respond when I tag you, including 19 days ago when I tagged you in this very thread.)

Thank you for working to update the templates so that all moderation messages will have a direct link to the Community Guidelines. That will be helpful to many.

I can understand that providing detailed feedback about every off-topic post made by every user would be a big ask on as large a platform as this.  (It might help us understand if you could tell us how many messages are flagged in a typical month or year and how many Guardians there are.  If KA needs to pay more Guardians, maybe Sal Khan or one of the 11 other employees who got over $300,000 in compensation last year could take a slight pay cut.)  However, when a user has not posted anything that is obviously against the guidelines, providing a link to one example of an off-topic post or at least a clue as to how it was off topic would be extremely helpful.  Is that something that the Guardians could do with most moderation messages?  If not, would there be some way that a user receiving a moderation message could seek clarification from someone?

It would help a little if we users had a way of finding our flagged posts (other than paging through all our posts), and/or a way of identifying which posts the Guardian has cleared the flag on but still thinks need to be changed.  Maybe the next time the platform is redesigned, there could be some change that would help with that, such as a way for a user to see a list of all their posts or programs that have been flagged, or a different flag (or different setting of the current flag) that a Guardian sets on the posts or programs that violate the guidelines.

I have been told not to engage with off-topic posts, but just flag them and leave it for the Guardians to handle.  But apparently the only guidance usually given by the Guardians comes down to "follow the guidelines".  I don't think it's always obvious which things are allowed or forbidden under the guidelines – certainly not to people as young as 13 from a wide range of cultures and countries. If the Guardians don't give guidance on how to make better posts, and users are not allowed to, how will people who make problematic posts ever figure out which posts are okay?

-------------------------------------------
Today I received one of the generic messages that doesn't even have a link to the Community Guidelines:

I have posted 31 Comments and 28 Answers in the last 4 days. Some of them were answering math or Python questions, some were answering questions about how the Khan Academy platform works, and a couple were answering things like "dude how do you know this stuff" [I responded that I was an adult who had used KA since 2014].  If any of those were off topic, how should I have handled them differently? 

If it wasn't anything from the last 4 days, my previous posts are all at least a week old.  Am I expected to go back through weeks or months of posts to figure out what Nati is referring to?

I do my best to only make on-topic posts.  The closest I get to chatting with other users is talking about math or programming or education in a post under a program.  The Guidelines state "Keep discussions focused on learning."  Am I allowed to talk with a user about how to get the most out of their schooling, or which KA programming course they might want to start with?

After my long discussions with Evan about the KA Guidelines and what is/is not ok to post, apparently I still posted something that was not ok, and I have no idea what it was. If even I have no idea which of my posts were off-topic or how to figure it out, something is wrong with the moderation system.

I welcome guidance and feedback on how to make this work better on my end, and anything else Khan Academy is planning to do or considering doing to make it work better on that end.

~ Janice

Evan Lewis

(Addendum to previous comment:  If I go to a user's dashboard and click on one of the categories of posts, none of them show a flag in that list, even if it shows a flag when I click on the individual post.  That means even paging through the list of posts on my profile would not show which posts are flagged.  The only way I know of to see if one of my posts has a flag is to click on every single post, which is impractical and unreasonable for users who make dozens or hundreds of posts in a month.)

I have no idea why I got the moderation note from Nati, and no idea how to reasonably figure it out.  This is incredibly frustrating.  Surely Khan Academy can do better.

who is Nati becuse i looked on the Ka team page and i couldnt find him or her anywhere...

@🖤⌁Ġøŧħ Pʉ℗℗ʏ⌁🖤

I think the KA Moderators are mostly volunteers, and I don't think volunteers are listed on the KA team page.  Some volunteers (including Evan Lewis) appear on the "Our Contributors" page under the "Volunteers" heading (9 current, 30 past volunteers). Maybe some current volunteers are not listed; I know not all past volunteers are listed.  (I volunteered for a project and captioned several videos about 10 years ago, and I am not listed.)

Only 6 current "Discussion community Guardian"s are listed, and no past guardians that worked after 2017; I hope it's not just 6 people handling all the flags for the past 8+ years!

~ Janice, KA user

JaniceHolz
That page is many years outdated.

I really want to know why KA is hiring people with no discussion activity to become Guardians.

Evan Lewis

I have now waited 14 days for a response as to what action I am expected to take regarding Nati's moderation message when I have no idea which posts of mine are the problem.  If you do not respond, I guess I'll Report a Problem and see if I can get an answer that way.

This lack of clarity and lack of responsiveness is why I was unwilling to make a time commitment when you asked me to help clean up the 6th grade math Discussion area -- it's too difficult to decide how to handle various types of posts when the users are given little specific guidance by moderators but I've been told not to give them that guidance myself.

I'm sorry so many students are forced by their school or parents/guardians to rely on Khan Academy when trying to make it work can be so frustrating.  KA staff keep saying they appreciate me, but it sounds empty and I don't feel appreciated or even respected.

Losing any patience I once had with KA,
Janice

Apparently the responses I made trying to help other users understand how KA works were against the Guidelines.
The moderators don't have time to give users specifics of how their posts go against Guidelines (or even an example of a post that does), and the rest of us aren't allowed to give them that info.
I guess if someone doesn't understand the Guidelines and make posts that go against them, they'll get a vague message from the moderators that explains nothing, and they'll learn nothing.

Unless this system gets fixed, I'm done answering Questions in 6th grade math.  Most will probably go completely unanswered.

KA is incredibly frustrating.

Hi! I recently got a post from a Guardian, (Nati) about how some of my comments on videos are 'off-topic'. (I have quoted the message in full, below)

 

Hi, this is Nati. We're happy to have you using and contributing to Khan Academy.

We're working hard to make sure that our video discussions are high quality, and we notice that you've made some off-topic posts.

Please visit the Discussion tab on your profile page:

https://www.khanacademy.org/profile/pinkcatsoda/discussion

There, you can delete your off-topic posts.

Thanks for your help, and we look forward to great contributions from you!

Nati

When I got this I felt rather confused, as I have only ever posted two answers and one comment on videos. The comment was on a maths video about Zero Product Property, and I had posted it to thank Sal for making the video, as it really helped me out with the topic.

Is it counted as off-topic? If it is, please let me know, and I will delete it.

Also, if any of my other comments or posts are off-topic, or breaking the Guidelines, please do let me know, and I will delete them. 

Thank you so much for your time. 

-Pinkcatsoda <3

Pinkcatsoda

Do you remember which date you received the message?  28 days ago, Evan Lewis said they were going to change the message templates to make sure every such message contained a link to the Guidelines, but the message Nati sent you has no such link. :-(

According to both Evan Lewis and Johanna D., the volunteers who review flagged messages don't have time to give individualized information to every user who gets a moderation message.  (Since someone might flag a post that was made months or years ago, I think it's often difficult or impossible for a user to find the post that caused the message.)
While Nati's message referred to the Discussion area below the videos, he probably used a generic template -- it's possible that he might use that same template even if the posts in question were on a computer program.  The guidelines state:

Make sure your questions and comments are relevant to the subject area you're posting in. ...This also applies to Computer Programming projects — discussions should stay focused on the code and related technical topics.

 It's possible that Nati is referring to a comment you posted on a program with a panda in which you said you like pandas.  I hope such comments would be allowed (since it's a single line on a post complimenting someone's program), but maybe some of the reviewers see that as off topic.  I don't know any way to find out for sure -- KA has 52 million users (and in my opinion often avoids transparency).

~ Janice, KA user since 2014

JaniceHolz 

I received my message three days ago now. (AKA, Thursday)

So I guess the link hasn't been added to the message template yet? :(

Thank you so much for your advice! I understand now, and I will make sure my comments stick to the topic of the project they are posted on. :)

I will also edit the one comment you mentioned about pandas, so it fits more with the graphic.

Again, thank you so much! I really appreciate it. :D

- Pinkcatsoda <3

Hi JaniceHolz,

I wanted to update this thread and let you know that the team at Khan Academy recently updated our default message and incorporated some of the feedback mentioned here. Some of the changes we've made include adding a link to the Community Guidelines and providing more specific details about what types of posts we consider off-topic.

Here is an example of our new Guardian message in effect:

We are deeply thankful for your commitment to supporting our learners here at Khan Academy. We work hard to improve our moderation practices, and we appreciate you for contributing meaningfully to that effort!

William,

Thank you for letting me know the default Guardian warning message has been updated.  Making sure it includes a link to the Guidelines is helpful.  (I'm not clear why it took 3 months from the time Evan Lewis said it was going to be added.)

I still think it's often difficult to know which specific messages might be construed as breaking the rules.  I had a long conversation with Evan Lewis about the specifics of the rules last summer before the Guidelines were updated, and I'm still unclear on some things even after dozens of messages exchanged in that conversation.  Yes, there are times when a post is obviously against the rules; other times, it is difficult to be sure.  In the latter case, I still think it would be helpful if the Guardian pointed the user to at least 1 example of a post by that user that is against the rules; if Guardians don't have time for that, then either the rules need links to clearer explanations & examples or there need to be more people allowed to explain those edge cases (either more Guardians or allow users to gently explain the edge cases).

As I wrote back on May 11, I got a Guardian message and could not figure out which of my posts prompted it.  If I can't figure it out, it's unreasonable to expect a random 13-year-old can.

Thank you for slightly improving the system.  I hope some more significant improvements are coming.

~ Janice