The Club Rules

Riters.club is built around creative freedom.

Stories can be strange.

They can be dark.

They can be ridiculous.

They can be controversial.

They can go somewhere nobody expected.

That's the point.

But creative freedom isn't a free pass to abuse other people.

So here's how the Club works.

Treat people like people.

Don't harass, threaten, stalk, bully or deliberately target another Riter.

Disagree with an idea.

Challenge a story.

Take the plot somewhere completely different.

Just don't turn another person into the target.

Riters.club isn't built around arguments in comments.

If you disagree with where a story is going, you have creative tools:

Write. Branch. React. Vote.

Make your contribution.

Create another reality.

Do something interesting with it.

Your Riter identity belongs to you.

Don't pretend to be another person, organization, moderator or official Riters.club account.

Parody and obvious fictional characters are different from deliberately misleading people.

Don't claim another person's work as your own.

Don't deliberately copy another Riter's contribution and present it as yours.

Don't upload artwork you don't have the right to use.

If you didn't create it or don't have permission to use it, don't submit it.

Creative freedom has limits.

Don't use Riters.club to facilitate, promote or distribute illegal activity.

Don't use the platform for serious criminal instructions, exploitation or material that would put other people at risk.

Do not create, upload or distribute sexual content involving minors.

Do not exploit, sexualize or facilitate the abuse of children.

Any such material is prohibited.

Fiction can contain violence, villains, murder, disasters and all sorts of horrible things.

That's storytelling.

Threatening a real person is different.

Don't use the story or platform to make credible threats against real people.

Don't publish someone's private information without permission.

That includes things like:

• private addresses
• private phone numbers
• passwords
• financial information
• private access credentials
• other sensitive personal information

A fictional character can live anywhere.

A real person doesn't need their home address written into your plot.

Don't flood the platform with:

• repetitive contributions
• automated submissions
• fake activity
• malicious links
• scams
• promotional spam
• attempts to manipulate voting or reactions

We're here for stories.

Not bot farms.

Don't create multiple identities to manipulate:

• votes
• reactions
• contributor limits
• contests
• artwork selections
• chapter titles
• publication decisions

One person shouldn't become an army because they really, really want their ending.

Our proofreading system is intentionally limited.

You may propose changes to:

• punctuation and capitalization.

You may not use proofreading to secretly change:

• words
• spelling
• vocabulary
• sentence structure
• meaning through rewriting
• additions
• deletions

If you want different words:

write a new contribution.

The £1 contribution system exists to make contributions meaningful.

Don't use payments to:

• defraud people
• exploit payment systems
• manipulate the platform
• abuse refunds or chargebacks
• circumvent restrictions

And remember:

£1 buys the opportunity to contribute.

It doesn't buy control over everyone else's story.

Branching is for creating another reality.

Don't create branches purely to:

• spam
• harass
• duplicate content
• evade moderation
• manipulate voting
• circumvent restrictions

If you've got another idea for the story:

Branch it.

That's what it's there for.

This is important.

You are allowed to be weird.

You are allowed to write something ridiculous.

You are allowed to derail a story creatively.

You are allowed to create an unexpected character.

You are allowed to make people wonder:

Who thought this was a good idea?

That's part of the fun.

Don't confuse strange with harmful.

Canonical contributions are preserved as part of the story's history.

If something has to be removed from public view, it may be redacted rather than silently deleted.

The platform may show that a contribution was removed without exposing the prohibited material.

The story's history remains auditable.

Riters.club may remove or restrict content, accounts or activity that violates these rules or creates serious risk to users or the platform.

Moderation decisions should be recorded internally.

Where appropriate, users may have an appeal or review process.

Don't attempt to:

• hack accounts
• bypass authorization
• exploit payment systems
• circumvent access restrictions
• scrape private information
• interfere with the service
• deliberately exploit security vulnerabilities

If you find a security problem, report it.

Don't turn it into your next contribution.

Make the story stranger. Don't make the Club worse.

You can disagree.

You can surprise people.

You can create chaos.

You can take the story somewhere nobody expected.

Just remember:

The person on the other side of the screen is still a person.

Depending on the situation, Riters.club may:

• remove or restrict content
• restrict an account
• suspend an identity
• permanently ban an identity
• invalidate abusive activity
• restrict participation in a book
• remove fraudulent votes or reactions
• take other appropriate action

Serious or illegal activity may be referred to the appropriate authorities where legally required or appropriate.