Community guidelines

Last updated November 1, 2026.

Carnivorous Collections works because collectors can trust each other and the data. These guidelines cover everything members add: wanted posts, offers and messages, photos, care suggestions, listing flags and reports. Moderators enforce them, and every action they take is logged.

Plants only

• Post and offer carnivorous plants: live plants, cuttings, seeds and tissue culture.
• No services or advertising: no SEO, marketing or web-design pitches, no links to other businesses, no merchandise.

Legal and ethical plants

• Propagating your own plants is fine. Cuttings, divisions, seed and offsets from plants you bought or grew are welcome.
• No wild-collected plants.
• US endangered pitcher plants (Sarracenia oreophila, and S. rubra subsp. alabamensis and jonesii) need a US Fish and Wildlife Service permit to sell across state lines, even when they're nursery-grown. Without one, keep sales and trades of them within your own state, and check your state's rules.
• Sending plants abroad needs a phytosanitary certificate and CITES paperwork: every Nepenthes and flytrap is CITES-listed, and N. rajah, N. khasiana and the pitcher plants above are in Appendix I. CITES doesn't apply to sales within one country.
• Patented varieties (a label with "PP" and a number, or "PPAF") can't be propagated for sale without the patent holder's permission.

Honest offers

• Describe the plant you'll actually send: size, clone or form, and how it's grown.
• Use photos of the actual plant, or say clearly that a photo isn't of it.
• Agree the price, payment and shipping before anything moves, and send what you agreed, when you agreed. If something changes, say so.
• Offer, and ask for, a payment method with buyer protection. Pressing someone to pay in a way that skips buyer protection ("friends and family") is a red flag, and doing it repeatedly is treated as a scam.

Respect

• No harassment, insults, threats or discrimination, and never share someone's personal details.
• Not interested? A short "no thanks", or no reply, is fine. Block anyone you'd rather not hear from.

Nurseries and shops

• Nurseries are welcome to make offers like anyone else, and to say they run a shop.
• Don't reply to wants just to send people to your store without a real offer, and don't post ads.

Feedback and reports

• When you suggest a care correction or flag a listing, say what's wrong and where your information comes from.
• Report real problems. Reports that keep turning out to be false stop counting toward hiding anything.

What happens when the rules are broken

1. Removed, with a reason. The post or message comes down and you're told why.
2. 7 days off the wanted board.
3. 30 days off the wanted board.
4. For good.

Scams, threats and sharing someone's personal details go straight to a permanent suspension, and spam accounts are removed. A post or message reported by trusted members may be hidden while a moderator reviews it; if it's fine, it comes back.

Appeals

If you think a decision was wrong, appeal it. Someone who wasn't involved looks again, usually within a few days.

For moderators

• Judge the post, not the person, against these guidelines, and always give a reason: members see it.
• Don't act on a trade or dispute you're part of; leave it to another moderator or an admin.
• Start at the lowest step that fits, unless it's a scam, a threat or personal details.
• When you're unsure, leave it hidden and ask an admin.